


Harsher, Weirder, Closer

by Spyre



Category: Sherlock (TV), Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Mrs. Hudson, BDSM, Breathplay, Complete, Crossover, Dom John Watson, Dom Sherlock, First Kiss, First Time, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jealous John, M/M, Military Kink, Mrs. Hudson Ships It, No Mary Morstan, Oral Sex, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock's Past, Sub Sherlock Holmes, Velvet Goldmine - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-08 18:35:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11087556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spyre/pseuds/Spyre
Summary: Sherlock's past comes to 221B when a strange pendant is sent to him by a dead man. The Past happens to feature a devilishly handsome Curt Wild, by the way. John gets jealous as fuck, and these two idiots might end up figuring some things out. There's a bit of a mystery, too, but it's mostly about angst, anger, love and lust. Lots of lust.





	1. The Great Unnamable Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [johnsredpants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnsredpants/gifts).



> If it hadn't been for johnsredpants, this fic woulda been a 2,000 word one-shot like every other fic I have written. She inspired me and kept me on task with no promise of payment or sexual favor. This fic is for her with my heartfelt thanks.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonderful COVER ART by JohnsRedPants!
> 
>  
> 
> [Click for her AO3.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11093532)

×××

John was headed out early in order to grab a bite to eat before his rotation at the clinic. He was starving. He was already planning on picking up curry chicken on the way back from work. He would get a double order. One never knew when Sherlock would actually eat but he could at least have something on hand for the great git.

John figured that he must’ve been doing something right if Sherlock’s clavicles and zygomatic arches were less than razor-sharp lately. He’d witnessed Sherlock eat four whole meals just in the past week, plus snacks! Wonder of wonders.

He shrugged on his jacket, his mood lightening at these thoughts.

Outside, the last vestiges of winter still rushed through the streets of London, freezing the water in the cracks of the cement. When John opened the door, he had only just registered the brief ring of the bell before the door swung fully open to reveal a visitor.

It took longer than he’d like for him to recognize the man who stood before him. Then again, how often did an internationally famous rock star visit one’s doorstep? The leather jacket was nothing short of iconic, the long, bleached blonde hair was tied back in a truncated ponytail. Large, black sunglasses shielded most of his unshaven face. They did not, however, hide the “beauty mark” that confirmed his identity.

“Oh, uh, hello,” he said to John in that flat, American accent, as surprised by his timing as John was, “Is Sherlock here?”

John blinked once, wondering if he was hallucinating, “Curt Wild?”

“Uh, yeah,” the forty year old rock star was unaccompanied but for a cab that idled behind him at the kerb.

John stared for a second before recovering, “Sherlock’s not here. I don’t really know, um…”

“John!” Mrs. Hudson’s voice pierced through the somewhat awkward moment as she approached from her apartment to the entryway. She joined John in the entrance, a cursory gaze shooting past him to land on Curt.

She gasped dramatically, hands fluttering to her chest. An instantaneous grin threatened to split her face in two.

John was further surprised to see the same, overjoyed expression blossom on Curt’s face as he exclaimed, “Hudders!?”

“Curt!? What the devil are you doing here?! Oh, you gorgeous man, come here!” John was pretty much shoved to the side, out of the way of their apparent reunion.

“Good to see you,” Curt said with unabashed warmth as he and John’s landlady shared a heartfelt embrace.

“It’s been ages! Have you come to see our Sherlock?”

“Hell, yes, but I woulda come sooner if I’d known you two were shacked up together,” he said conspiratorially, and his smile was a million watts. It lit up the gray palette of the London winter behind him.

“Oh, you stop it. Heavens, look at us hanging about here in the freezing cold. Come in! Come in!”

Curt turned to give the cab a signal. The black car pulled away into traffic.

They all shuffled into the foyer, and John shut the door behind them. The three of them made their way to Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen.

Mrs. Hudson was full-on chatterbox, “Curt was the one who recommended Sherlock to me, to fix what went wrong with my husband’s case and all of that mess. Curt and Sherlock were living together at the time.”

“Well, just for the season, recording that album, and I’d moved in with Jack... Jack Fairy,” he added for John’s benefit.

Curt sat in the offered chair with a kind murmuration of thanks. He rested his forearms on the kitchen table. He openly studied Mrs. Hudson in all her tutting glory. He let his grey-blue eyes slide over John Watson, getting the Feel of the guy in the span of a few heartbeats.

Mrs. Hudson rejoined them after putting the kettle on, “It’s been, what? Oh, dear! Six years now?”

Mrs. Hudson looked wistful, as if steeped in golden memory, “Curt and Sherlock were two peas in a pod…” she trailed off as if editing something rather unsavory. She looked uncertainly at John, her hands wrung together.

Curt did not have such reservations, his charming smile twisted a bit with a jaded slant, “Our main thing was heroin. We split over it. Sherlock, um, he had a close call. Mycroft put ‘im up in rehab. He moved out, started working more and more with the police. I finished the album, flew back to the States.”

John did his level best to keep his thoughts hidden.

After the American’s perfunctory explanation, John now found it easy as pie to look unabashedly at Curt Wild. He found a wariness bloom within his gut, casting warning tendrils up his spine. What did this man want from his best friend now, after all these years?

He wasn’t sure of Curt’s intentions with Sherlock, but he knew that he most definitely did not want them to get reacquainted. John’s loyalty was a fierce and rare thing. Sherlock’s weakness for drugs was something that John guarded most doggedly.

Something of this apprehension must have shown through on John’s face.

Curt shifted under the doctor’s calculating gaze. He cleared his throat, expression utterly serious and open. He leaned back, hands rubbed on his jean-clad knees, “I’m sober, clean… uh, sixteen months now. I don’t even drink. I’m not lookin’ to revisit all that or anything. Just... Sherlock texted me out of the blue, said he had something for me.”     

Mrs. Hudson tisked, and squeezed Curt’s shoulder reassuringly, “You are more than welcome here, Curt. I am so proud of you!” She leaned into him and briefly squashed her cheek to his.

John shook himself from his rigid posture, becoming aware of the time, “Right, well… I’ve got to get to the clinic. It was nice to meet you, Curt,” - hand extended.

Curt took the doctor’s hand in his, giving a short nod in farewell, “Yeah, same here.”

“Tah,” and he performed an about-face and left without looking back. Curt’s presence set his teeth on edge.

He texted Sherlock as soon as he was in a cab.

 

  _Visitor for you._

**Add curry tofu. -SH**

 

John stared at the screen of his phone, brows now knitted together in perplexity.

 

        _What??_

**Tonight. You were going to get curry**

**chicken. Add curry tofu to the order. -SH**

**For our guest. -SH**

_Why don’t YOU pick up the food since he is_

_YOUR guest????_

**Can’t. Case. -SH**

John clenched his jaw and huffed in aggravation. He was about to return his phone to his pocket, choosing not to reply, when the message alert chimed once more. He acknowledged receipt, opened the message, and read his flatmate’s next text.

 

**Four question marks. You don’t approve. -SH**

 

This text was a bit off. He re-read and mulled it over. Finally, John recognized the discrepancy. This was Sherlock’s way of addressing Feelings.

“Hmph,” he grunted in wonder at the realization, pocketing his phone as the cab made its meandering way to the clinic.

He still chose not to reply. He did not want the rock star junkie to stay any longer than strictly necessary. He wanted Curt to leave. ASAP. He decided to get back to 221B as soon as the clinic no longer needed him. Sherlock just should not be alone with that guy. At all. John reflexively made a fist, tension building to a peak within him.

Sherlock had been intermittently absent lately, though John did not take it personally. Sherlock needed space sometimes. They both did.

Undeniably, their friendship had undergone an irrevocable Change.

Was it even a friendship anymore?

Perhaps it never really fit perfectly under that label anyway.

Their dynamic hadn’t remotely resembled what most people would call Friendship.

It had been harsher, weirder, closer.

However, it seemed now, there was some huge part of their companionship coming up short. Or was their relationship just made that much different because of Sherlock’s prolonged absence and his betrayal of John’s trust? Was John just not over it?

No, that wasn’t quite right.

Ever since Sherlock had returned from the dead, his suicide having been fake (and cruel as All Bloody Hell), John felt that he and his best friend were more estranged extensions of each other than anything, a right hand and a left hand, disembodied. They acted like two people who had been a unit but were now somehow quietly dysfunctional.

It was the proverbial elephant in the room, a pernicious pachyderm that John was not sure he was even capable of naming. There was a delicate web of absolutely uncomfortable Feeling that had him tied up in knots.

The fact that Sherlock was acting as if he felt it, too, made it somehow very specifically Worse.

He huffed darkly at that thought.

The two of them had rarely been successful at feats of communication, but they had occurred… Before. It had been… oh, sod it. It had been Enough.

Despite the mute discomfiture, their need to remain in eachother’s lives was as strong as ever. Much to John’s chagrin, their attachment had become almost one of desperation. It was most evident during those times between cases when Sherlock was unoccupied with the Work, when he and John just happened to be at 221B in simultaneous doldrums.

Shockingly enough, the need for reassurance seemed to be a mutual phenomenon. Last night proved as much to John. His eyes unfocused on the present reality of the cab ride as he recalled the look on Sherlock’s face from the night before.

_Sherlock was paler than normal, though he had stopped looking anorexic. Which was saying something. His full lips were a porcelain pink, now parted slightly. John had turned from cleaning up his dinner to find Sherlock poised motionless and apparently unhearing. He’d been gone all day._

_“I asked, where’ve you been?” John repeated himself, a little less timidly, standing just in the opening of the kitchen, outside the hall that led to Sherlock’s bedroom._

_“Doing research,” was what Sherlock finally said, soft and hollow. The baritone was laced with a careful lilt that highlighted some of the tension between them. It made John shift his weight from one foot to the other, glance away, and then down at his feet._

_When he looked back up, Sherlock was watching him closely. There was no guarded expression, no calculating steel to his mercurial eyes. They were raw, clear and uncomfortably tender._

_John cleared his throat, “Anything I can help you with?”_

_Sherlock’s brows lifted and then fell. He took a deep breath and let it out. He looked into the kitchen, off to the side of John’s head, unseeing, “Not at the moment.”_

_Heartbeats happened in silence._

_“Ah, okay,” John replied after a moment._

_Sherlock amended quickly, “But if something comes up…”_

_“Yeah. Of course. ‘course,” John nodded his head, paused, “Do you want to, I dunno… watch some telly?” John bit his lower lip once and rolled a shoulder as if to shrug off the anxiety that had built in Sherlock’s absence._

_Sherlock seemed to relax at John’s suggestion, and looked to the door of the bathroom and then back to John’s searching gaze, “Sure. I’ll be right there.” His mouth bounced a quick, tiny smile that didn’t reach his eyes._

_Nevertheless, Sherlock had showered, donned his pajamas and dressing gown, and joined John on the couch in a flatteringly short amount of time._

John’s throat tightened now, as he sat there remembering how close Sherlock had ended up sitting next to him on the sofa. They had started with a respectable distance between them.

Through the trips to the kitchen, and the loo, and to get a blanket, they had somehow ended up close enough that their bodies were in constant contact. John had found the warmth and peace of the flat comforting, a comfort he was coming to Crave.

Truth be told, Sherlock’s body heat next to him had been a kind of honest, unfiltered reassurance he simply could not deny himself. He hadn’t the strength to resist. He waited for the discomfort or embarrassment to rise within him over this realization, but it never came. In its stead, a sad kind of quiet wonder burgeoned, some alien sense of gravidity.

“Shit,” he gasped abruptly to the empty cab, startling himself, strange and staggering emotion welling within him.                                             

×××

Sherlock kept his phone in his gloved hand, resting it on the sofa cushion beside him. He stared pensively out of the darkly tinted window of the waiting room. Second floor, privately owned office. Corner office. Modest. Discreet.

He was waiting on a file he had requested a few days prior. The file would contain every available piece of data on a dead journalist, Arthur Stuart. Stuart had committed suicide two weeks ago.

Sherlock had received a package from the recently deceased. In it, a note, and a green pendant.

Distraction: John had not yet replied.

Sherlock knew their friendship was in Trouble. He knew it because he had spent a lot of time being (fake) dead, alone and missing John more than he could ever articulate. He did not know how to fix it, though. And he wanted to fix it. How to fix it?

Point of consideration: John was fairly obvious when addressing Sherlock’s shortcomings.

Sherlock had taken these criticisms rather seriously as of late, and was putting in quite a bit of work towards self-betterment (in accordance with John). Sherlock knew he could not change who he was at the very core, but perhaps John’s requests were not all that unreasonable [Eat. Sleep. Be nicer. Clean.]. They were tedious, surely, but what was the reward?

Well, John. John was the reward.

John’s continued presence in Sherlock’s life was vital to the Work.

It was in a Serbian dungeon that Sherlock had let himself weep, once, for John. He had not considered, ever, not for the briefest of moments, how his suicide had affected John. Sherlock had only wept for the ache of missing his companion.

Assumption: John was strong. He would move on. Surely.

But John hadn’t. Upon his return, John was so overcome with fury that he tackled Sherlock and there had commenced a legendary row. And Sherlock just hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut, kept saying the wrong thing and it would set John off all over again. Sherlock ended up on the sidewalk, standing bloody, watching John being whisked away in a cab.

What a puzzling sort of reunion! Not as expected.

It had left Sherlock feeling unsteady, and confused.

John hadn’t cared how he’d done it, faked his death right in front of him. John hadn’t asked where he’d gone or for any details of his Work. None of that apparently mattered to John. John had only cared about one thing, the Betrayal.

Part of him suspected he’d deserved every bruise his doctor had prescribed and administered.

Deeper down still, there was a part of him that had craved the abuse from John, who cared enough to deliver it. Sherlock never dared to inspect that tiny glimmer of Darkness.

John had moved back to Baker Street as soon as he could stand to be in the same room as the (duly mollified) detective. At first, they had settled into a precarious partnership. Over the following months, they grew closer, wounds still fresh, but the healing had begun. And this kind of healing apparently had a lot to do with staring.

John stared at him a lot, quickly looked away when he became aware of what he was doing.  Sherlock stared, too, but he was much better at it than John. Meaning, John rarely caught him at it.

But sometimes… sometimes they caught each other staring, their eyes locked across the room, across the cab, or across a corpse. It was then that the Great Unnamable Thing would pulse between them like an electrical artery, fleetingly exposed, insistent and painful. Distracting. Frustrating.

Sherlock was at a loss on how to Deal with the Great Unnamable Thing. He could not seem to stop himself, though. He continued to surreptitiously watch John, as if the good doctor may wind up being only an apparition of Sherlock’s making, as if Sherlock were still bound in ropes somewhere far away, dreaming of his own, private Shangri-La where John Watson was forever ensconced at his side.

John seemed to be doing the same, as if Sherlock would randomly cease to be, as if life at 221B was an uncertain miracle.

After a brief while of frustrated fidgeting, Sherlock texted John again.

 

  **Curt’s friend committed suicide. Before he did,**

**he sent a package to me: a note, and a piece of**

**jewelry. I am getting information on the dead man.**

**Running tests on pendant this afternoon. -SH**

 

After a moment’s hesitation, he sent another text: his estimated arrival time at Baker Street.

He could imagine the stunned look on John’s face at this unprecedented text. He stifled a smile.

The flaxen haired man probably would think something was Wrong, that Sherlock had been kidnapped and the text was somehow a ruse. There was no help for it, though. Sherlock must find a way to address and resolve the tension between them or risk permanent damage.

It was imperative that he solve the slippery problem of the Great Unnamable Thing. He had come to need his Conductor of Light. And what was more, he did not resent the Need. It was, after all, just that: a necessity. Sherlock had decided that fighting it was an absolute waste of energy. That energy was best used to ensure and foster his friendship with John. Obviously.

A text came from Curt, saying he was at the flat and catching up with “Hudders”.

Curt must mean Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock must have deleted the nickname. He texted back that he would join them shortly.

Sherlock left the nondescript office with the file under his arm, and headed to Bart’s to retrieve the pendant and the results of the experiments that he had let progress.

A short cab ride later, Sherlock found himself staring at the results on a computer screen and at the enigmatic, green stone set in gold. He had known the setting was gold, but the identification of the stone was apparently something beyond his meager grasp of petrography.

Problem: Results of experiments, inconclusive.

Course of action: Seek subject matter expert.

Person of interest: Retired Professor of geology, author and leading petrographist, Dr. Jacqui Lennon.

Sherlock hailed a cab, pendant safe in his pocket. He searched his phone for the name of the professor with whom he had consulted on various occasions when the need arose. He sent a text asking for help.

There was not an instantaneous response. He would have to wait. He could interview Curt in the interim.

“221 Baker Street,” he instructed the cabbie, depositing his phone back into his pocket where it bumped against the pendant.

He slid his thumb over the pendant inside its little, plastic bag. It was not a seriously engaging mystery, but it was just odd enough to warrant a little effort. He watched London slide by outside of the cab.

Sherlock Holmes spared not a second thought for the reunion ahead. He did not wonder how seeing Curt Wild would affect him. Why would seeing his First and only sexual partner affect him in the slightest? Nonsense. And so, he was woefully unprepared for the moment he stepped into the living room of 221B and came face to face with his former lover.

×××

It looked to be a slow day. Between a case of the flu and a case of chafing mistaken for herpes, John texted Mycroft.

 

    _Curt Wild is in our flat._

 

Before John could put his phone away, it rang. Not good.

“Mycroft,” John answered.

Mycroft’s voice came in clear but tinny, as if he were in a bathroom. That was a visual John did not need.

“What did he say was his purpose with my brother?”

“He said Sherlock told him to come by.”

“You are right to be concerned, Dr. Watson. What do you know of their past association?”

John shrugged even though he knew Mycroft could not see him, “Just that they lived together, did drugs together.”

There was a voice, strangely familiar, in the background of the call. John strained to hear it, perhaps identify it. It was a male voice, distant.

Mycroft was already speaking before John could make heads or tails of it, “I would appreciate it if you continued to keep a weather eye on Sherlock. And I appreciate your keeping me informed.”

John was not too surprised at Mycroft’s politeness, but he took note of it, “Sure thing.”

And the call was disconnected. 

John stared at his phone a moment before the nurse came to notify him of his next patient.

“Right. Thanks,” he said to himself, leaving his office to attend to the nervous young man in exam room two.

John would take off of work as soon as there was a lull. He’d been lucky that it was a slow day. He couldn’t really justify leaving early if it had been busy. Sherlock was a grown man, after all.

×××

In the past six years, Curt had seen candid pictures in the news, short video clips, a handful of them making it to th televisions in his various hotel rooms. He remembered Sherlock as a much ganglier youth than the broader man who now filled the doorway. His eyes were the same, though, sharper than diamond arrowheads. And about the same color.

Curt’s memories of Sherlock began to fall into place, defining the moment suspended between them. He remembered the eyes being this sharp, and sharper still had been the Brit’s acerbic wit and tongue. When they had shared orbits, it had been a tongue upon which were borne strange and marvelous ideas.

These ideas had cycled between them those many years ago, a feedback loop that escaped clarity in the harsh light of sobriety. A good chunk of his best album had been heavily affected by Sherlock and his fantastic, drug-induced ramblings.

And his heart squeezed like a bloody fist between two, paralyzed lungs. Fuck. Sherlock was mesmerizing.

Curt felt a bit awkward standing there in the unfamiliar living room.

Sherlock blinked twice in quick succession, the delicate curves of his nostrils flaring out.

The world’s only consulting detective looked very pale and very… Expensive.

“Nice place,” Curt heard himself say. He meant it.

Sherlock’s gaze flitted around the room, as if assessing the truth of the statement for himself.

“Arthur Stuart,” he blurted, his voice loud in the silence. His quicksilver orbs did not alight again upon Curt. Instead, he divested himself of his coat and scarf with appropriate speed, none too hasty as to be sloppy and none too slowly as to be forced. Natural. Right.

Sherlock pushed away the unexpected discomfort that had taken root in his belly. Maybe he was getting ill. He felt a touch lightheaded. That wouldn’t do. After doffing his coat, he headed for the kitchen to make tea. When was the last time that he ate?

At the sounding of the name, Curt’s face scrunched up in confusion. He did not respond to the declaration. He merely watched Sherlock who seemed to disappear into his own head. Curt’s consternation morphed into one of longsuffering amusement.

When it was apparent that Sherlock was committed to making tea, Curt moved from the light of the living room into the fluorescent hum and clank-bustle-whoosh of the kitchen. He stopped at the edge of the linoleum, taking in the layout of the place.

“John Watson,” Curt said in a mimicry of his host's odd version of starting conversation.

Sherlock almost knocked over a sugar bowl, but caught it with grace. He took a quick breath in relief, “Yes, my flatmate. My… friend.”

Could he say that now?

[Memory: _“My friend.” – “Colleague.”_ ] 

“Your… friend,” and Curt’s gift with his voice came to the fore, velvet and rough at once, “He seems pretty protective of you. You’re lucky to have friends like that.”

Just the one, Sherlock thought. Suddenly, he did not want to watch the water boil. He swirled with a flap of the hand, “Help yourself to the tea. I have forgotten to… to take care of something.”

And, like that, he was gone down the hall.

Curt heard a door close. He blinked, sighed, and shoved his hands in his pockets to wait. He fucking hated tea.

 


	2. Need Unbound

Curt must have waited almost half of an hour before the sound of an opening door broke the silence.

“So… You’ve stopped… chasing the dragon,” Sherlock’s voice floated into the living room. He had reappeared in the doorway of the sitting room.

Curt turned from his examination of the assorted scientific paraphernalia scattered about the flat. He had no interest in science, but the objects looked like modern art to him. Art was cool.

Sherlock looked utterly self-possessed now. No more awkward arcs of fluttering restlessness about his person. Just calm and collected.

“Yeah. Figured some things out… got some help,” Curt slipped his fingers into the recesses of his back pockets. He looked much older than Sherlock remembered him being. Of course, he did, time had passed. Years.

Time had actually been kind to the rock star, even if he hadn’t been kind to himself. He had aged well, possibly more handsome than he had ever been in youth. A sense of hard won self-possession was on display where an angst-ridden restlessness had once been.

“You don’t mean rehab.” Sherlock put his own hands in the pockets of his crisply starched, black trousers. He wore his suit like armor, “You’ve met someone.”

Curt huffed a laugh, “Forgot how well you do that.”

Sherlock’s face remained impassive. He could now meet Curt’s steel gray eyes.

Curt cleared his throat, “Yeah, I met someone. Not like a relationship or anything, but a friend. A good friend, turns out.”

Sherlock seemed to be staring right into him, unsettlingly still and intense.

“But maybe you know what I mean?” Curt’s voice colored with a golden warmth.

The image of an unassuming John Watson sprang to life within his mind palace. John stood there in the room with him, wearing the loathsome Oatmeal Jumper, unseen by Curt. The doctor’s hands were clasped behind his back in an easy parade rest.

Sherlock conceded after a protracted moment of consideration, “Perhaps I do.”

“Yep. Turns out I don’t need drugs to write good music,” Curt said it with a soft, rolling shrug, a new sparkle coming into his eyes.

Sherlock found himself relating to this statement. Conductor of Light, indeed. Mind Palace John left the room.

Sherlock’s eyes followed him out. He snapped himself back to reality when Curt spoke again.

Curt shifted on his feet, “Her name’s Hoija. She’s brilliant. You’d dig her. She’s at the hotel.”

“She?” eyebrows bouncing up once and then down, “Indeed.”

“‘Course, she’s not you. It’s just… different.”

“Better,” Sherlock amended flatly, emotionless and sure.

Curt kind of froze at that. He seemed to be seeing something Sherlock could not. Curt gave a single, sharp nod.

“Better,” he agreed.

Sherlock’s smile was a surprise, and it was brief. Energy seemed to build around him, charging the air between them, “Good. Now. Tell me about Arthur Stuart.”

They took seats in the living area, and Curt filled Sherlock in on the investigation that Arthur had led into the disappearance of Brian Slade, that he had been the one to make the connections with Tommy Stone. Sherlock rolled his eyes and supplied an indolent remark. Of course Sherlock had known who Brian Slade had become! The mystery had rated a three, at best.

Curt also told Sherlock of the super creepy, obsessive manager who had facilitated Brian’s transformation. He told Sherlock of the lawyers she had put on Curt’s proverbial ass so that he couldn’t help Arthur even if he wanted to. Somehow, Arthur did it, though. He connected the dots without Curt’s help.

After the news broke, Tommy Stone had all but disappeared from the pubic eye. In fact, no one really knew where the rock star was anymore. Curt surmised that he was probably in hiding, perhaps plotting some new identity with his rabid sycophant of a manager in order to take over the world yet again.

Curt then told Sherlock of his meeting with Arthur at a bar some years ago.

No, he didn’t know why Arthur would have committed suicide. He hadn’t known him personally. Not really.

Sherlock had listened to it all. Curt wasn’t one to talk needlessly, or add extraneous details. A highlight of his character, in Sherlock’s opinion. Finally, he asked, “Did you give him anything when you met at the bar?”

Curt paused, went very still as he struggled to think. Sherlock saw the moment that Curt remembered, “Yeah, a pin. Brian gave me a green pin when we were together. He said it had belonged to Oscar Wilde. I gave it to Arthur.”

An exclamation from the doorway disrupted their conversation, “You have got to be kidding me!”

John stood there in the living room, staring at his flatmate who sat in his black leather chair. At least Curt was seated in the client’s chair and not John’s.

When Sherlock had texted him his arrival time, he had been flabbergasted. Of course, his ETA wouldn’t have been accurate.

“Testing on the pendant has been postponed until Dr. Lennon returns my texts. I decided to come have a chat with Curt about Arthur Stuart.”

“You could have picked this stuff up on your own,” John complained, holding the two, white sacks of food in two white-knuckled fists.

“Nonsense, John. I had already assigned the task to you. Well, actually, you assigned it to yourself. You were going to get the food anyway.”

Curt watched the exchange in silence.

“No, no. Of course, you’re right. Where are we going to eat, then?”

“The kitchen table, John.”

“How’s that going to work since it is… covered… in…” but John stopped, seeing that the kitchen had been thoroughly cleaned. He blinked, looked to his flatmate, “Did Mrs. Hudson do that?”

“No,” Sherlock replied in a longsuffering voice.

John then looked to Sherlock, considered a second, and then looked right at Curt, “Did you clean it?”

Sherlock huffed dramatically, and stood quickly, catching John’s gaze and interrupting any answer Curt might have made, “Honestly, John! I cleaned it. I cleaned my mess. You’re always going on about it. Well, I did it. Now,” he clapped his hands together as he strode past his doctor into the kitchen, “Let’s eat. That smells wonderful!”

Curt stood from the straight-backed, wooden chair. John looked at him, nonplussed. Curt shrugged and joined Sherlock in the kitchen. John pivoted to watch the two. Something was Up with Sherlock.

The ETA text. The Eating. The Cleaning!

John set the bags on the table, wary. His jaw did not actually drop when he saw Sherlock laying out plates and silverware, but it almost did.

They had only just begun to eat when Sherlock’s text chime sounded.

Sherlock had a mouthful of food, and swallowed it hurriedly.

“It’s Lennon,” he announced before quickly reading the text, and then standing and speaking in rapid succession, “She can inspect it tonight. She’s at the lab. And... I can make the train if I go now.”

Sherlock was already headed for the coat tree by the door.

John quickly interjected, fork still hung in the air between the plate and his mouth, “Her lab’s nearly an hour away. How long will her tests take?”

“No idea! Don’t wait up,” he scooped up Arthur Stuart’s file, and he was down the stairs and out of the flat like a dark, swirling wind.

John looked at Curt.

Curt looked back, annoyingly at ease. The American slurped the second half of a noodle into his mouth.

×××

On the train, Sherlock reviewed the journalist’s file. It contained the articles published in his name, his birthplace, addresses, schools, employers, every pertinent move the man had made. There was an article written in the New Yorker that was an interview of Arthur Stuart. It apparently was the only one he had given after Tommy Stone was exposed.

The interview highlighted the contacts Arthur had made on his journey to finding the truth of Brian Slade’s resurrection as an American pop idol. It included Arthur’s reaction to the death of Brian’s ex-wife who had drowned in her own puke, apparently too drunk and high on pills to save herself. The interview painted a brief picture of a morose man who did not seem to feel proud of his exposing Brian Slade.

Never married. No sign of friends or attachments. He lived a solitary existence.

Sherlock opened the letter, and re-read it.

_Dear Mr. Holmes,_

_Curt Wild spoke of you once, on a roof top in King’s Cross. He lived with you then, I think. He was the most beautiful, imperfect thing I had ever seen. It was a night that should have changed my life for the better, but the memory has been nothing but a plague in my mind, an example of a life forever out of reach._

_He called it a freedom, a freedom you could allow yourself or not._

_And here it is, I haven’t been able to allow myself the life I wanted. The shadows of my past, the people who despaired my nature, I let the guilt of leaving them be my ruin. I know it now. And they are dead. No mystery there for you, I’m afraid._

_Enclosed is a pendant that Curt Wild gave to me at a pub a few years ago. He said it was supposed to have belonged to Oscar Wilde. I don’t know the truth of it. It meant a lot to me. It meant too much._

_I have always admired you, your work. I kept track of all the good that you accomplished. They don’t report on it nearly enough here in America. I tried writing a couple of articles about your cases. No one seemed interested in publishing them._

_So, I’m sending the pendant to you before I go._

_Maybe you can confirm that Oscar Wilde could’ve owned this pendant. A small mystery for you, and a token of my esteem._

_Best Regards,_

_Arthur Stuart_

×××

It did not take long for Dr. Jacqui Lennon to perform her tests. 

“Mr. Holmes, this pendant has no equal. It is a scientific marvel.”

“Because it’s from space?”

“Because it’s unlike any other alexandrite I have ever seen or heard of. What’s most remarkable is the moissanite! Trace amounts of moissanite, too. More than I think is normal, a much, much, much higher percentage than it has any right to be. I am not an astrogeologist. But it is odd, to me even, that alexandrite and moissanite should even be formed like this. It’s from another star system entirely! I would dare say that this pendant would shake the scientific world on levels I can’t myself begin to express.”

“You’re doing a decent job thus far,” was what he said, thinking John would approve of his congenial words, if not his deadpan delivery of them.

He picked up the pendant with one gloved hand, turning it in the light. The light flashed through the stone. It didn’t look like much, but the quality of light cast from within was rather fetching. It changed the jewel from a dark, green hunk of rock to something exceptional.

He narrowed his eyes, “What of the claim?”

“That it could have belonged to Oscar Wilde?”

Sherlock nodded.

Dr. Lennon just openly laughed at that, giddy with her findings, “It could have belonged to King Tut!”

“That old?”

“Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Old. And just… well, very weird!”

“Weird?” Sherlock arched a brow at that because Dr. Lennon was not prone to speaking so animatedly. She tended to repeat things in triplet, yes, but never with such verve. He considered the pendant before putting it back in the plastic bag. 

“Thank you very much for your time, Dr. Lennon.”

“Oh, oh, you are more than welcome! I feel like I should be thanking you. What are you going to do with it?”

Sherlock was already headed for the door. Dr. Lennon followed behind him in her manual wheelchair as he made his way to the laboratory entrance. She had no problem keeping up with his long strides.

He answered her simply that he would assure its place with the rightful owner.

He did not indicate that he was the rightful owner at this point.

“Okay! Here,” she proffered a business card which he took with a cursory glance. Her eyes were bright in their intensity, “Please, please, please give my card to the owner. If they are interested, I would be willing to put them in touch with some people… People who could learn a whole lot from that stone. Oh, and without damaging it!”

“I will,” Sherlock agreed to her request, and left.

Dr. Lennon stared after, sighing at the loss and the wonder of the pendant, “My, my, my.”

×××

Sherlock was surprised to see a black car sitting just outside the academic complex, waiting for him.

He glowered and strode purposefully away from the car, toward the shuttle that would take him to the train station. The car followed.

“Don’t be childish, Sherlock,” Mycroft had the tinted window in the down position.

Sherlock stopped, approached the car when it, too, came to a stop. Sherlock peered inside, cataloguing every detail about his brother he could. Mycroft was always very careful to eliminate any signs of what he’d been doing. Therein lay his weakness. His habits of concealment were too deliberate.

“You’ve just fixed your hair, and managed a poor job of straightening your suit. Why, brother dear, you are positively rumpled. What have you been up to?”

Mycroft didn’t blush exactly, but Sherlock was shocked to deduce his brother was embarrassed by something. Of course, no lay person would have noticed the oh-so-subtle shift in his brother’s countenance, but Sherlock would.

Sherlock gave a disgusted grunt of disapproval, “I suddenly don’t want to know.”

“Get in the car,” Mycroft ordered.

“Why? So you can warn me off of Curt Wild? I’m sure John was just super concerned,” Sherlock straightened from his stooping posture, “Tedious.”

“You will find your shuttle arriving too late to be of any use to you,” came Mycroft's smug voice on the chill, winter air.

Sherlock stopped, spun, paced back within view of Mycroft who was sitting in the car, safe from the cold. His brother was leaning forward on his umbrella, hands folded over the wooden curve of its handle.

“You’re bluffing,” Sherlock accused, eyes narrowing.

“Perhaps. Would you like to risk it?”

Truth be told, Sherlock did not want to ride the shuttle or the train. Some part of him wanted to get into the warm car and be summarily transported back to Baker Street in relative privacy and comfort.

Mycroft, knowing his younger brother so very well, leaned back into his seat, demonstrating how much luxury could be had in the back of the car.

Sherlock sighed, and acquiesced, making a big show of getting into the car. He immediately set Arthur Stuart’s file on his lap and pulled out his phone, choosing to ignore his brother.

Mycroft looked Sherlock over, approving of his healthy weight gain. He decidedly did not verbalize this observation. He retrieved his own phone, and proceeded to see to his more mundane affairs. He would allow Sherlock his privacy, for the moment.

×××

John walked Curt to the door a little while after Sherlock left. There was nothing for it. They had finished their dinner in amiable small talk. Curt was one-hundred and eighty degrees out from Sherlock, John surmised, a wonder that the two had ever got on.

And as for Curt’s impression of John, well, he was pretty sure John was eager for his departure. Jealous? Or just protective? Maybe both. Curt had a gut feeling that John was in the dark regarding the sexual nature of his past relationship with Sherlock. Curt figured that was probably for the best.

“I guess let Sherlock know I’ll be at the hotel. If he can’t get me on my cell, he can call Hoija there.”

John nodded, “Okay, and Hoija’s your assistant?”

Curt’s smiles came easily to him these days, and he smiled now at John’s probing, “No, she’s a friend.”

“Alright,” John responded, “I’ll let him know.”

“Thanks for dinner,” Curt’s smile softened.

For a brief moment, John caught a glimpse of why Sherlock would have found the musician to be enjoyable company. Good thing he was going, then.

“Don’t mention it,” John replied, supplying a small smile of his own, not wholly forced.

Curt left him with a handshake and a duck of the head. He darted off for the waiting cab, breath blooming in a white cloud as he slotted himself inside the car. And then he was gone.

John berated himself a bit over the relief he felt at seeing Curt Wild disappear into the dark.

There was no danger there. Sherlock wouldn’t go back to that life, anyway. Curt had Hoija. And Sherlock had John. There was nothing to worry about. He shook his head at himself, ascending the stairs to their flat and readying himself for bed.

It would be back to business as usual tomorrow, and that was a comforting thought.

×××

Sherlock woke late into the next morning. He had fallen asleep in his trousers and socks. The sheets were twisted around him, hair a madness of curls. His sleep had been fitful and he was exceedingly grumpy. He hoped John was working a shift at the clinic. He did not have the emotional energy to be around him today.

He had been Feeling far too much lately.

First, it had been the Great Unnamable Thing. Then, Curt Wild’s return had stirred in him all kinds of detestable sentiment. The onslaught was taking its toll on his willingness to be remotely civilized. He even resented the idea of getting dressed if John happened to be around.

Although, he had half a mind to approach John as soon as possible, and berate him for his texting Mycroft over such trivial matters.

His phone chimed somewhere in the chaos of his linens. He fished it out, and sat up, blinking bleary eyed at the screen. It was Curt, saying he was on his way. Apparently, Sherlock had texted him with instructions to meet him at the flat. Oh, yes. The pendant. He was going to give Curt the pendant.

Sherlock stood and stretched, joints popping. He yawned and mussed his hair with his hands. It felt good to scratch his scalp. It happened to be a sensitive spot for him. A memory of Curt’s hands fisted in his curls made him give pause.

These memories were intrusive, and unwelcome! He pushed it away with an aggravated grumble. He needed a shower. And he needed to get dressed. Curt would be here by noon.

Sherlock slung his bedroom door open, “John?” – he called experimentally. The stillness of the flat was telling.

He popped back into his room and gathered everything he needed to prepare for Curt’s arrival. Aubergine shirt. His favorite. Why not? He looked damned good in it, he knew. John had very nearly said as much one day, not long ago.

[Memory: _“Where do you get these shirts?” – “Why? What’s the matter with it?” – “Nothing. It’s just... It’s tight, that’s all.” – “It suits me.” – “Yes. It does. Right down to your cheekbones, your posh hair-do, and your popped collar.”_ ] 

That exchange had made his mind spin for some reason.

Why was John so concerned with what he wore?

He frowned, shook his head at such nonsense, and went to shower.

It was half past noon before Curt Wild was once again inside 221B Baker Street, possibly for the last time.

Sherlock had been shorter than usual with him, and seemed even more uncharacteristically flustered than he had the day before. He just seemed Off, aggravated and full to bursting with a palpable energy. Curt thought he would either get shocked or burned if he got too close. It was somewhat worrisome to be around.

It all came to a head when they were in the kitchen, the smell of coffee and toast heavy in the air.

They stood in the kitchen, quiet.

They stood between the kitchen counter and the table.

Sherlock stared at the array of instruments on the table, fingers splayed against the edge of the burnished wood. The pine was scarred and burned from years of experiments.

Once discarded memories pervaded his mind’s eye, experiments, forays of a very different ilk.

He was very much aware of the male presence to his immediate left, close. He once knew the man, and that man had known him in ways that left Sherlock feeling cagey and somewhat unsure. Off-balance, lost, weirdly yearning for some forgotten… thing. What was it? A ghost of something far away but familiar.

He noted his body’s responses, the increased rate of breathing, sweaty palms, and the sensitivity to smell: Curt’s smell of leather, cigarettes and coffee. It had been so very long, and this idiotic thing with John had made him want… Just, Want.

Curt watched Sherlock with bald interest, watched those eyes rapidly scan back and forth as if speed reading some phantom book. There was nothing on earth that had compared to intimacy (albeit drugged intimacy) with the young genius before him.

Curt would always have a fascination with the man because of it. Sherlock had that inexplicable Something that Brian Slade had possessed. Except with Sherlock, there was no rabid self-awareness of it. It remained pure, unadulterated Self, bared for the world to witness. It made most people feel small, uncomfortable. For Curt, it was like staring into a fire. Mesmerizing, inviting, thrilling. Dangerous in its ability to consume.

Sherlock closed his eyes.

Curt knew something was up. He hadn’t been around Sherlock much when they were sober, but they had lived together and experienced some Shit. Curt trusted his gut instinct more than he trusted anything else in the world. Right now, his instinct said something was about to happen.

Sherlock shook his head once, almost imperceptibly. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter as he tucked his chin down, hiding his face in the fringe of his hair. He was transported into his mind palace, but he hardly recognized the corridor in which he found himself.

He was standing alone in silence, staring into a small, neglected hallway, somewhere in the bowels of his palace, near memories of food, sleep, adolescence and childhood.

The space was dim, and derelict. On each side, he could just make out a handful of unmarked doors, adorned only with rusted latches. There were no knobs on the doors, no means of access. And the dust! Dust was eloquent, alright, and here in this lost, non-descript corridor, there were undisturbed swaths of it.

Curt furrowed his brows in concern at the extended silence and the pained look on the other man’s face. He swallowed hard, and reached a hand out to touch Sherlock’s lower back. Hesitantly: “Sherlock?... What is it?” 

Upon contact, as innocuous as it was, a door flung open in his mind palace, and then another and another [BOOM, BOOM, BAM!] until half a dozen doors, silver with dust and disuse burst open with vivid life and recall.

Sherlock opened his eyes abruptly and faced Curt with such speed that the blonde jumped back and hit the counter behind him.

Sherlock took that single step, instantly crowding Curt’s personal space, taking up all the oxygen in the room.

Inside his mind, oceans of luminescent water stripped the doors from the jams, stripped the wallpaper, and he was overcome. His body shuddered once, and strong. He shivered through a single, shaky breath.

In the next second, Sherlock pressed into Curt, thigh to naval. Curt issued a startled gasp which Sherlock promptly smothered with a rough hand over Curt’s lips. Sherlock pushed their hips together and Curt’s eyes widened in surprise, his mouth forming an O under Sherlock’s long fingers.

“I remember everything,” Sherlock said in a low voice, his platinum-green eyes taking in every detail of his former lover’s face, flashbacks superimposing themselves over the reality of the moment.

Sherlock slipped into a trance of memory, frustration building, “I thought I deleted it. I didn’t. I hid it, all of it, buried it,” – a harsh whisper, then, “Why didn’t I delete this?”

Sherlock growled softly in response to his own question, seemingly unaware of what he was doing. He minutely ground his hips into Curt. Sherlock’s lips parted as he felt increasingly out of breath, images and sensations flooded him beyond his control. He tilted his head back at the alien pleasure, at the memory of it all.

Sherlock was suddenly very tired of being in control.

He leveled his quicksilver eyes back onto Curt who was watching him as if the detective might murder him, fuck him on the spot, or both.

Curt witnessed Sherlock’s normally aloof orbs ignite with carnal promise.

Curt may have trembled under the weight of it.

Sherlock moved his hand from Curt’s mouth to bracket the shorter man’s neck, palpating the bounding pulse in his jugular, the hard swallow of the throat. He traced his thumb along the unshaven jawline as he used his gaze to search Curt’s sparkling blue eyes for answers.

There hung between them a gravid sense of possibility and a terrible, debilitating heat.

A subtle squeeze from Sherlock’s hand had Curt’s vision narrowing with overwhelming desire and adrenaline.

Sherlock had always brought out the submissive within.

Long ago, in another life, the soon-to-be great detective had deduced Curt’s need to be dominated and had wielded the information with spectacular aplomb.

Curt watched Sherlock with hungry wonder, the intense emotion playing across Sherlock’s pale face. He put his own hands at the bony crests of Sherlock’s pelvis, applying a pressure that would surely bruise, aligning their erections and providing one, long, slow grind that sent the room tilting away from them. The move elicited a deep-throated moan from Sherlock that made the hairs on Curt’s spine stand on end.

Something had broken Sherlock’s reserve. Something unrelenting had whittled it down to this meager state, something that had nothing to do with Curt. And Curt knew it was John Watson. And he didn’t give a flying fuck. Sherlock needed him to comply with this? Curt was more than willing. Sherlock was exceptional in every way, even this. He had no reason to refuse, and every incentive to submit.

Even as a virgin, Sherlock had been freakishly adept, and had only improved with practice.

Curt became immersed in the memories, things he was shocked to find he had forgotten.

Sherlock did not taste of cigarettes as he had in the past, but the feel of him was the same. Still wiry, though stronger than he ever had been. Still tall, overbearing, and passionately insistent.

Like the waves of the ocean, the tide and the power, Sherlock’s desirous attentions were as a force of nature. With one hand at the base of Curt’s neck, the other hand grabbed the short ponytail and pulled, tilting the other man’s head back at a dramatic angle. Sherlock kissed the shorter man’s throat, licked and bit.

Sherlock was a relentless wave set upon the shore: revisiting, softening, and then crashing back in. Biting, worshipping, soothing, crushing. Undulating hips and firecrackers of pain set off in a dizzying pattern of exquisite stimulus until Curt’s knees turned to jelly and his legs gave.

Sherlock was nearly panting, nostrils flaring, eyes half-lidded, pupils dark and dilated in the midst of this filthy display. Appalling. He deliberately did not catch Curt as the man fell to his knees before him. He only stepped back and allowed him to drop.

Sherlock watched attentively, if dazed, fingertips tracing white-blonde hair. Curt smiled fleetingly before nuzzling and mouthing at the front of Sherlock’s trousers. Curt’s mouth watered, hands roamed up to grab the back of the detective’s thighs.

The implications of Curt’s position were overwhelming, blurring all of Sherlock’s senses into one. It was all that mattered, forgetting himself and altering reality to encompass just the pleasure. It was not personal or sentimental, this exchange. It was necessary, like a dose of medicine. Like a hit.

He knew that his physiology was hampering the rapid-fire succession of cold reason and logic that defined his waking sobriety. He welcomed the flood. He was effectively intoxicated.

Serotonin. Dopamine. Oxytocin. Oh, my!

He just could not care, not about anything.

It was then, while beautifully enraptured, that he came to a realization.

At the sound of the unzipping of his fly, at the wicked light in Curt’s eyes, at the feel of a hot breath against the head of his aching prick, he knew why he had not been able to delete this. It was why he could not fully delete the 7% solution and everything that came with it.

His erection was freed, after a tug of his pants let the length of it pop out, tapping Curt on the nose. Curt grinned fleetingly. The smile dissolved as he smelled Sherlock’s sweat and pre-cum, an earthy aroma coupled with the expensive soaps Sherlock used.

There was no pause, no moment spared. Down to the root, Curt swallowed the length of him.

Sherlock’s abdominals contracted sharply at the abrupt heat and suction, all thought obliterated as if a bomb had gone off in his mind palace.

Curt heard the other man hiss, and then groan. The engorged cock pressed onto the bed of his tongue. The crown pushed nicely past the entrance of his throat, cutting off his air.

Curt moaned as he nearly came on the spot. Breath play had been his favorite kink with Sherlock. He wanted more, much more. All of it. Now.

Sherlock’s right hand was in his hair, now tight and motionless. Sherlock used his other hand as a prop, behind him on the table. Sherlock’s knees had gone all funny and weak. Soon, he would have to use the table to keep him on his feet.

Curt sucked, stroked and lathed with his tongue. He worshipped the cock before him, eyes rolled back in his head before closing in Carnal Bliss. He furrowed his brows and made a noise as if he were tasting the most delicious thing on the planet.

Curt had never thought he would have had this chance again. He showed his gratitude with wanton furvor, trying to recall the techniques that had been most effective. He softly scraped his lower teeth on the underside of Sherlock's dick, a smooth, careful pressure that had Sherlock whispering a curse.

The dismanteling of Sherlock's civilized facade was probably the Very Best part of sex with the genius. It was kind of like a power trip, heady and addictive.

Curt filled his lungs before deep throating, once, twice, and humming with the pleasure that coursed through him. He sucked hard, unrelenting, moaning through it all. The vibration of the hum coupled with the tightness of Curt's accomodating esophagus forced Sherlock to put most of his weight on the table, leaning against it heavily. The table creaked. His legs were jelly, his cock was molten Need.

Curt's eager ministrations were now central to his Reality.

Sherlock gulped air and whispered in various languages, angry, rough, degrading phrases that turned Curt inside out, painfully hard as he was in the confines of his jeans. His prick was so hard and needy that it hurt. And He Loved It.

The chemical fog of lust must have impaired Sherlock’s auditory perception at some point. He did not hear the footfalls on the stairs until John had taken the top two steps and strode past the open door of the kitchen, fully past it with but a glance.

In that cursory glance, John saw that his flatmate was on the far side of the table, his back to the entryway.

Sherlock stood alone, unmoving in their small kitchen.

A sweat stripe between his shoulder blades was darkening the fabric of his purple shirt.

[Memory: _“Aubergine, John.” – “What’s that?” – “You said purple. It’s not. It’s aubergine.” – “Huh. Well… It looks purple.”_ ]

Sherlock’s shoulders stiffened slightly as his awareness clattered up a few rungs of his mind, thoughts whirring to life behind the curtain of sensation. He saw John’s image reflected in the shine of the four-slice toaster.

The former army doctor stepped backward, back into the frame of the open door.

John Watson was silent. He _had_ to be figuring it out, or was Curt completely hidden behind the table?


	3. Grief is Desire for What is Lost

“Oi,” John greeted, sounding suspicious. He still did not see Curt.

John was not figuring anything out _exactly_ , but something unnerved him. He found himself thinking of a scene from one of his favorite action movies, _Lethal Weapon_ , when one of the two heroes had been trapped by a bomb on the toilet.

The hero in the movie had to remain still or the bomb would detonate.

John knew it was a ridiculous scenario, but they lived a ridiculous life.

Had someone strapped a bomb to Sherlock this time?

His worry increased when his friend did not immediately respond. He was used to being ignored, but why was Sherlock breathing so hard and covered in sweat?

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock looked down from his friend’s distorted reflection in the toaster in order to meet the upturned gaze of a startled Curt Wild.

Curt merely sought an answer within Sherlock’s crystalline gaze. He remained on his knees, stubbled cheek pressed to the dark pink shaft, glistening with spit. The tip of the jutting erection was nearly magenta from Curt’s enthusiastic ministrations.

Sherlock had been so close to orgasm, it was all he could manage to want.

Curt’s brows rose when Sherlock did not push him away. In fact, Sherlock may have tugged slightly on Curt’s hair.

Curious and daring, Curt flicked his talented tongue across the slit, and gave a small suckle to the bulbous tip.

Sherlock exhaled shakily through parted lips, trying and failing to right himself, to care about Reality again.

As much as Curt wanted this, he knew it had to stop now. Damnit. Shit. And Sherlock did not look like he was capable of stopping of his own volition. So, Curt took mercy on him. Fuck.

Curt started to stand, forcing Sherlock to release his hold on his hair. He remained close when he stood.

Sherlock was staring blankly at the toaster where his reflected view of John was now obscured.

Curt's mouth still watered despite their predicament at being caught. A large part of him resented the idea of stopping. Sherlock, after all, had made no indication that he had wanted Curt to stop.

Curt’s calloused fingers wrapped around the detective's spit-slicked length, and gave a single, twisting stroke before tucking Sherlock back into his black trousers.

Sherlock choked on a silenced moan, chin dropping to his chest as his own hands clamped down on the table behind him. His frost-green eyes were half-lidded, dilated with pleasure, breath shallow.

Sherlock felt like he was on the edge of a cliff, looking over, experiencing that strange pull-push vertigo that had him rocking back on his heels.

John’s eyes rounded like saucers when he saw the blonde musician rise into view. His straight, bleached blonde hair was a mess. His lips were wet and swollen. His chin was shiny with spittle and… and…

John’s perception of time snapped into hyper-focus, and the following seconds seemed to run like molasses.

Sherlock did not move.

John heard the closure of a zipper, registered the movement’s of Curt’s arms as the stranger presumably refastened the button on his best friend’s trousers.

[Memory: _“I consider myself married to my work.”_ ]

Curt studied John’s face, gaze dark and intense. The doctor was a stranger to him but the rigid expression, the pain in his sapphire eyes was so recognizable that Curt almost hurt to see it. He recognized it because that pain was his own, the pain of Love Betrayed. The anger, too, was something Curt found resonated with him, to the bone.

Curt leaned his mouth to Sherlock’s ear, nose buried in his dark, wavy hair, eyes trained on John’s face. Sherlock closed his eyes as Curt’s familiar velvet timbre filled the decimated chambers of his mind, “If you could see his face… He fuckin’ loves you.”

Sherlock shook his head once as if to deny this statement, as if to discharge himself from the moment.

His mind palace was rapidly clearing and he was attempting to right the wreckage. The damage was not permanent, of course, but tedious. Unkempt, though, the sexual Need stalked the halls and rooms wherever he went, predatory.

And what form had all of that Need taken? Why, it had taken the form of John Watson, sans jumper. Sans pretty much everything but a pair of camouflage trousers bloused over dusty combat boots. There were stripes of fresh blood on his boots. Strange.

 _“Take me to your room,”_ the newly minted Mind Palace John said, voice brooking no argument. His eyes were full of promise and threat. Thin line, that.

Back in Reality, Sherlock issued an order in a placid voice, surprising Curt, “Go to my room.”

Curt glanced to John, and then back to Sherlock. Without a word, he stepped away and then around the table.

Sherlock couldn’t imagine what must be going through John’s mind. The fear of John’s potential anger, disappointment and/or disgust was burgeoning low in his abdomen. Sherlock did not feel Shame, exactly. The Need saw to that, despite the seedling fear of rejection. He fought within himself, seeking steady ground from which he may be able to Deal with John.

“Bad time?” John’s voice was brisk, cold. His eyes followed Curt like the man had a loaded gun in his hand.

Sherlock straightened himself, turning to let his gaze settle on his flatmate, “I do apologize, John. We got… Well... carried away, as it were.”

The phrase sounded strange to John’s ears, coming from Sherlock.

“Sure, no, I…” – his attention flickered between Curt and Sherlock – “…just need to put the milk up.”

“’Scuse me,” Curt muttered.

John stepped to the side and Curt disappeared down the hall and then into Sherlock’s bedroom. He closed the door behind him.

“Sherlock,” John whispered harshly as he strode quickly to the kitchen table, setting the milk on the edge of it, “Sherlock, did you consider that, maybe, there is no case?”

Sherlock fought the urge to ogle John’s mouth, preoccupied as his mind was with the Need, “What do you mean, no case?”

John kept his voice low, whispered and urgent as he leaned in, “He could have sent that pendant to you himself.”

“Whatever for?”

“This! To get you to…” – Here, John faltered, struggled for the words that seemed to stall at the weird fear and anger that laced the ideas cropping up behind his eyes. He stuttered once, and then, “I dunno... to get you to shoot up again, get back into that life with him.”

“Why would he want that?”

John snorted, and then glanced behind him to see that Curt was still in the bedroom, “Jack Fairy died. Then this journalist friend of his committed suicide. He must be lonely.”

Sherlock seemed to weigh John’s words. He had not considered Curt’s potential emotional vulnerability. He had to be pretty damned affected.

True enough, too, was that he had not considered the possibility that this could all be a ruse. Why not? That answer was a simple one. He knew Curt Wild. John thought they had just done drugs together. John didn’t know how close the two men had really been.

Through the kaleidoscope of memories that played unbidden within his mind palace, Sherlock perceived Mind Palace John remaining close. The Need stood watching him, bloody boots planted firmly, bare chest and arms causing Sherlock to hesitate. The intense, animalistic gleam in this new John’s eyes made Sherlock’s heart race.

Did his John, here in Reality, want him that way? What he would give to see the expression Curt had described.

“He was my first,” Sherlock confessed, stripped of pretense, raw with the Need. 

John did that rapid blinking thing he did when he was caught unawares, right in the Feels. A rush of air punched out of his lungs, “First.”

It wasn’t a question. John’s mind just was not working very well. The silence of the kitchen was palpable.

Sherlock continued after it became clear that John had nothing more to add, “It’s not a ruse. He is sober. He’s clean. So am I.”

John seemed to stop blinking altogether. The odd expression on his face was hard for Sherlock to read. John was always so hard for Sherlock to read. Sherlock wanted to Fuck. He wanted to be fucked. He wanted to feel Nothing, and Everything.

At these thoughts, the Need smiled and stepped close, nearly consuming the detective.

He had to leave the room, had to leave John. He all but ran away, down the hall and into his bedroom. He shut the door quietly behind him, breathless.

John waited in the kitchen, hearing the bedroom door click shut. He was petrified by some overwhelming emotion. He breathed into the quiet. He thought he heard a bed creak. He spun around on the spot, charged into the hall and down the stairs. He left 221B as if it were on fire. He felt like He were on fire.

What the hell was happening to him? Was he about to hyperventilate? He started in a quick march, the stretch of the strides felt good. But it wasn’t enough. He broke into a jog, grateful for the lack of people out in the cold. The great gulps of frigid air were put to use as his leg muscles pumped. He ran and ran until, finally, he felt like walking.

He stopped on the sidewalk, clouds of white breath mushrooming in front of his face. He ducked quickly into the mouth of an alleyway, alone and breathing hard. Though this time, the burning in his chest made sense because of the running. Making sense was a Good Thing.

×××

**17 Months Ago**

_“So, you from around here?” John asked, face pleasant in the light of the street lamps. At almost two in the morning, only a few cars passed the two, strolling strangers who were talking on the sidewalk._

_“No, Liverpool. You?”_

_“London, yeah. You know, you have bloody gorgeous eyes,” and John may have grinned like an idiot._

_“Yeah, people say that,” was the response, and John was rewarded with a promising smile._

_“Not too modest, are you?”_

_“Modesty is boring.”_

_John’s stomach clenched and, for a moment, his heart had a problem figuring out a decent rhythm. The young man had sounded just like Sherlock._

_And Sherlock had been dead for two months now, a blur of time that John could not account for._

_The other man stopped walking, turned to John, and said, “Listen, my flat’s just up the street. Would you like to pop over for a cuppa… or whatever?”_

_Something dark twisted inside John as he considered the strikingly beautiful bloke before him. Derek? No, Dorian._

_Dorian’s dark hair was wavy, well kept with “product”. His sculpted face was cast in stark contrast by the streetlamps and blackness of night. They had been talking so long that they had walked some blocks away from the pub where they had met._

_John suddenly realized: he could have him. He knew he was probably pretty slow on the uptake with this revelation, heard himself say something just to make up for his lack of an informed reply, “Coffee?”_

_“It’s whatever you want, doctor,” and the guy meant it. Like, Meant It. As in all forms of Sex: a hand job, a blow job, and John’s drunk imagination couldn’t get past those two._

_John swallowed hard, and gave a Gaelic shrug. He knew he was drunk but the ideas swirling in his brain germinated from seeds planted in his psyche long ago. Ideas and impulses kept in the dark, suppressed, buried._

_The Hurt caused by Sherlock’s absence throbbed once within his core, and the Darkness – the thing inside that wanted to Hurt and be Hurt – stirred in response._

_John offered a tentative, wobbly smile and a single nod: “Sure. Okay.”_

_×××_

_“C… Christ,” John gasped as his ability to speak or think was apparently sucked out through his cock._

_The deep, masculine moan vibrated the sensitive foreskin, and John seemed to lose his air. He was panting as if he’d been sprinting._

_The stranger, Dorian, dislodged the engorged penis from his mouth, “What d’you like?”_

_John struggled to form a sentence, “This… this is nice.”_

_Dorian considered this answer with more care than John was expecting. After a moment, he lathed John’s balls with his tongue, one hand wrapped around the base of John’s shaft, the other pulling the skin of his scrotum flat and tight._

_John moaned, and pushed his arse down into the mattress beneath him to avoid thrusting up. No woman had gone down on him quite this… well. It was a bit frightening. He bit his lower lip to keep from making too many noises._

_Dorian, all long lines and lean frame, sat up from his bowed, kneeling position on the big bed. Apparently, Dorian had not been totally satisfied with John’s answer, “Are you a top or a bottom?”_

_After a second or two of silence, he began to crawl up John’s body, placing kisses along the way. No immediate reply, then? Interesting._

_John felt he was on the precipice of something monumental and life changing, and it scared the shit out of him. Much like he did in the face of anything that challenged him, he leaned into the intrepid vertigo of denial and desire, wide-eyed and wanting._

_Dorian’s curiosity was piqued as he poised on his hands and knees above his new conquest, pricks aligned, barely brushing eachother as they pulsed between the two men. He took in the rapid changes playing across John’s face. The smile that crested Dorian’s  enchanting face was a wicked thing that made John suck in a sharp breath._

_“Look,” John started quietly, a bit unsure, but Dorian did not let him finish._

_He lowered his groin down onto John’s and began to lick and suck at the older man’s throat. John’s hands seemed to grab at Dorian’s body of their own accord, strong fingers digging into his lean flanks. Dorian’s ribs catalogued the placement of each fingertip as delicious, sharp spots of pain._

_The doctor was holding back. Dorian knew. He’d taken him home because he read something most wonderful in the former soldier: natural sexual aggression. A born Top. And now, Dorian was thinking John Watson had never been with a man. There was something spectacular and rare in that thought._

_Dorian rolled his narrow hips, breath shaky as John’s spit-slick cock glided against his own. This move elicited a grunt of surprised pleasure from John._

_Dorian began to trace nips and licks down the length of John’s torso and abdomen, ending up lapping at the furry, inner thigh. He put his mouth and hands just about everywhere except on John’s cock and balls._

_This went on for several minutes until John was all but writhing. The teasing continued past the ten minute mark. A dozen minutes, and it was becoming torturous. If Dorian had been wrong about this one, he expected the Begging to begin at any moment._

_Dorian watched John’s face for signs of his true nature. There! The flex of the jaw muscle, the furrowed brows and the whispered string of violent curses escaping his thin lips._

_Finally, upon feeling a subsonic, feral growl from the man beneath him, Dorian moved his mouth to John’s cock and gave it a handful of licks from root to tip, ending with a swirl each time. John almost jumped out of his skin, arching up off of the bed. And fisting the sheets._

_Dorian’s smile was absurdly smug. It suited his face. John did not see it at first, with his eyes so tightly shut. John was shining with sweat now, and desperate._

_When no further attentions came to his cock, John opened his eyes and stared down at Dorian with something close to fury. A promising fury._

_Dorian’s smile morphed as the seriousness of the situation hit him, “Do what you want to me, John,” – the hesitation that flickered in John’s eyes made him add – “please.”_

_John sat up on his elbows, breathing still rapid, hair mussed, the Darkness within rubbing its velvety haunches against the walls of his chest._

_Dorian whispered, “It’s why I brought you here.”_

_In the quasi-darkness of someone else’s bedroom, and with the alcohol, the endorphins, John saw a specter. He saw something so powerful and strange that it nearly made him lose his mind on the spot. Maybe it had already happened._

_For John, Dorian’s alabaster features morphed into the painfully familiar silhouette of his dead friend. Just tonight, he could be what he wanted. In this instant, John knew that Grief was Desire._

_“Come here,” John ordered with a certainty that brooked no refusal. And Dorian did as he was told, everything that he was told, wanton and willing._

×××

Curt was on the bed, leaning back on his palms. He watched Sherlock lean against the door, eyes closed, head back. Fucking Gorgeous.

Too bad he was taken, whether he knew it or not.

Curt couldn’t help the small, sad smile that played at his mouth.

Sherlock opened his eyes and saw him there. He pushed from the door and strode towards Curt.

“Stop right there, you idiot,” Curt said.

Sherlock stopped.

Curt stood from the bed and it squeaked a little. It sounded loud in the silence.

“Will you not finish what you started?” Sherlock pursued in an imperious voice kept hushed by the uncertainty racing through his nervous system. His blood still boiled, shirtless John in his mind was crowding his reasoning.

Curt did not answer right away.

They now stood an arm’s length away from each other.

Outside the room, there was a rapid succession of thumps, feet descending the stairs, and a door slamming shut in the distance.

“That was John leaving, wasn’t it?” Curt asked instead.

“I have no idea what’s gotten into him,” Sherlock said in a rush, looking away and around, anywhere but Curt.

The Need approached ever closer, chest to chest, warm breath on the hollow of Sherlock’s throat.

Sherlock batted him away in his Mind Palace, and ordered this new John to get a shirt on right away. It was seriously damaging his ability to function.

John did, but the uniform blouse that appeared did not help matters in the slightest.

Sherlock apparently had a Thing for John in uniform. Damn.

Curt was talking. Sherlock had missed some of it. As he surfaced, his awareness caught the tail end of a sentence.

“…should just go.”

“Sorry. What?”

Curt sighed, knowing full well that Sherlock hadn’t heard anything he’d just said, “That man wants you, Sherlock. Like, in a life or death kind of way. Like air. He fucking freaked when he saw us together. You obviously feel something for him, too. And I am _not_ gonna be that guy. I'm gonna leave now.”

Sherlock frowned deeply as Curt spoke. He arrested Curt’s exit with a firm touch to his shoulder, and an almost desperate sort of gaze passed between them.

×××

The pub was cave-like, ceilings slung low and ribbed with darkly stained wood beams. There was a single window, and that window was small and set in the door through which he had come. John took an automatic tally of the occupants.

There were four people in the bar now, including John. It was, after all, early afternoon on a week day. There was an old man on a tall, straight-backed chair, cane propped against the stool to his right. There was a barrel-shaped man asleep in a corner booth, close to the restrooms and the digital juke box.

The bartender was folded in on herself at the bar, large, kohl-rimmed eyes scanning the small cellphone in her hands. It was so dim in the pub that the white-blue glow lit her orangey tanned face. The mass of split ends were highlighted like a halo around her narrow features. Her focus on the phone was absolute.

John made his way to the bar through a flock of circular tables, chairs neatly tucked in, awaiting the evening crowd.

“Four Roses, please,” John ordered the bourbon when it was apparent the bartender wasn’t going to immediately acknowledge him.

“You got it,” and the woman proceeded to lay out his glass and pour with one hand, her phone in the other.

John was amazed. He moved his gaze to the bloke two seats down from him. The man’s hat was heavily decorated in army paraphernalia, his face weathered and hanging like battered canvas. His nose and ears were a little overgrown for his pleasant features, the unavoidable effects of gravity on cartilage as everyone ages.

The apparent veteran wore a button-down, plaid shirt neatly tucked into blue jeans.

There were scars up and down his arms and on his hands.

They were burns. Napalm?

“Cheers,” the man said, startling him out of his reverie.

John’s smile did not reach his eyes, his memories were of a different ilk now. He could feel the sand of Afghanistan surface in the folds of his mind.

The whiskey was plunked down before him on the thickly lacquered bar surface.

“Where’d they send you?”

John’s brows raised at the older man’s question, distracting him from the burn of the whiskey.

The deep blue of the stranger’s eyes was watery with age.

John understood the question. Veterans could recognize eachother pretty much anywhere, even without the military pins and badges, “Afghanistan.”

The man grunted in approval, and then leaned in as close as he could while dramatically looking about for eavesdroppers, “Vietnam.” And he winked.

John sat up straight. He had been prepared for just about anything but that. “But we weren’t involved in Vietnam.”

The veteran stared meaningfully, “That’s the official story.”

John was suddenly very interested. There had been rumors, and he thought a letter had been declassified some years ago. He never read it, too busy running about London with his maniac flatmate. He did not want to think about Sherlock at all.

John’s text alert sounded, breaking the spell. Speak of the devil.

 

      **If you must insist on my not smoking, I insist**

**on you not drinking Four Roses until after 5PM. - SH**

 

John swiftly looked around, as if Sherlock would materialize out of the shadows. 

He did not.

John grumbled and replaced the phone in his pocket.

He downed the whiskey as if it were water, no longer feeling like sipping the expensive libation.

The man’s voice interrupted his scowling, “Trouble on the home front? Name’s Jack, by the way. Jack Redfearn.”

John reached to make the handshake work, “John.”

Jack sipped at his beer, watching John closely, “Never worth it.”

“Sorry. What’s that?”

Jack sighed loudly, his voice raw as if bearing a wound, “Never worth staying mad at someone you care about.”

John frowned, no longer looking at the man. He glared hard into his empty tumbler, beginning to seethe a bit.

Jack Redfearn seemed not to notice, and continued without prompt, “I mean, you know? It could end. Poof. Stray bullet, car just splatters you on the pavement, random heart attack, cancer…”

“Right,” John cut him off, sensing the man was listing these things in perpetuity for a reason.

Jack laughed mirthlessly. It was a rough sound.

“Julie!” Jack called, apparently to the bartender. She looked up with blank eyes, “Another glass of liquid courage for my friend!”

She performed her one-handed pour routine despite John’s muttered refusal, “No. No, thank you. -- Oh, well. Thanks.”

“Cheers, John!” Jack saluted with his beer, and John saluted half-heartedly with his whiskey.

“Cheers,” John said, the warmth of the whiskey heating his belly and his joints.

Julie shuffled away, nose buried in her cellphone.

Jack finished off his beer with a satisfied smack of his lips and a thunk of the beer bottle on the counter top. He turned fully to John now, right side of his body leaning against the bar, “So, what’d you do in the army?”

“Surgeon,” John answered. He did not want to stew over his reasons for being here, and was glad for the change in subject. He glanced at Jack as he said it.

“Oh,” the light in Jack’s eyes flickered strangely. The man had the kind of face that looked familiar because of its even, regular features. He was small and compact in frame, like John. His hair had once been blonde, but was now almost completely white.

“Yeah,” John replied.

“Well, then you know,” Jack’s voice was nearly a whisper, the tone low and secretive as he leaned in.

John found himself leaning in a little, too, but resisted the urge to whisper. He stared at Jack.

Jack stared back.

“Know what?” John finally relented.

“What hesitation costs a man.”

John’s breath seemed to leave him, and he felt the anger rise anew within him.

How presumptuous this guy was being! John didn’t need “liquid courage”. No, that’s not why he was here. What did the stranger know about it? Nothing. Not a damned thing!

It took John a moment or two to realize his text alert had chimed again.

He tore his gaze from Jack, and downed his second glass of whiskey, “No more for me, thanks,” he said a little too forcefully to no one in particular.

Jack had watched, and now was turned back the way he should be.

John dug out the phone once again as it chimed a second time, and read the texts.

 

  **You left the milk out. - SH**

**Can’t find ginger nuts. - SH**

 

John growled to himself.

Curt could probably find some ginger nuts for him, John mused.

The bitter thought made him smile without humor, while simultaneously wrenching at invisible drawstrings in his gut. He felt conflicted and increasingly hopeless. Neither were familiar or welcome feelings for him.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” Jack asked, a new beer being set before him.

John thought that perhaps this time Jack was talking to Julie. He clutched his phone in his hand, and at the extended silence, John grunted noncommittally.

“Every choice is a chance, brother. Nothin’ for you in this pub… but lousy regrets,” Jack seemed to be talking to himself now, his focus wandering from the present, a memory playing across his face that made John want to run away. It was almost as if he were staring at a ghost of himself.

John’s anger deflated.

He blinked and breathed, and the pale, striking face of his friend superimposed itself over reality.

He could look on that face for the rest of his life. He realized that he wanted to watch it wrinkle with age, and John would be happy with that. Because that would not only mean that Sherlock survived to old age, but it would also mean that Sherlock was in John’s life. And he couldn’t imagine a life without Sherlock Holmes.

A thoughtful energy suddenly took the place of his anger.

Hell, he knew what he wanted. Maybe not specifically.

And he most certainly knew what he didn’t want.

He didn’t want Curt and Sherlock to get back together.

The images of that potentiality played unbidden across his mind’s eye.

“Damnit,” he cursed.

Jack’s eyes rounded theatrically, and he half-turned to John who swiveled to stand from his bar stool.

“I’m going to do something stupid,” John announced.

“Good for you!” Jack cheered, raising his beer and grinning, “Go get her!”

John paused, filled his lungs with a great pull of air. His fists tightened and unfurled in his anxious need to move.

“Him,” John corrected, feeling bold, “It’s a bloke.”

Jack’s grin did not dissipate in the slightest. He just looked very amused at John’s declaration, “Well, go on!”

“Right,” and he took a moment to smile back, just a little, before charging off like the idiot he was.

Jack shook his head and was laughing as the retired army doctor disappeared from the pub in a flash of energy. Oh, to be that young again, life full of possibilities. He silently wished the man luck, and drank to his courage.

Outside, dark clouds had dimmed the afternoon light. Rain and thunder stalked through London, slicking the streets, rattling the windows. It would be a hell of a storm.


	4. Great White Electric Vulture

Clothes and hair drenched from the downpour, John had hailed a cab in good time, but there was no fully escaping this rain. On the cab ride over, John vacillated between the concept of Sherlock as a free entity, and Sherlock as a vulnerable addict.

His emotions ran the gamut, ranging from anger to terror and back. Interspersed throughout was the rather vivid and fresh memory of Sherlock getting sucked off in the kitchen. He hadn’t seen anything, not really, but it had been enough to set loose his imagination.

Just as the cab had pulled up, John had finally settled on simmering anger, a familiar and comfortable feeling for him. His default state any time his world upended.

“Get out. Get him out. Where is he?” John barged into the flat, hands at his hips like a gunslinger in a bad western. He didn’t look like a gunslinger, though. He looked like a drowned, frustrated hedgehog. It was endearing, and oddly sexy.

“Curt left,” Sherlock stated from his chair, looking up from his phone, taking in John’s appearance with a few flicks of his eyes.

“Is he back here?” John pushed open the bedroom door, looking ready to toss the furniture about, as if Curt were hiding under the bed.

“John, he’s not here,” Sherlock stood, putting his phone away. He stalked into the kitchen to start a kettle. John obviously needed tea.

“Not here,” John echoed, following his flatmate, still tense, “Good. Fine.”

Sherlock turned to look at John, lid to the kettle in his hand, “You came back to kick Curt out of our flat?” 

“I did,” John confirmed, chin tilted up, jaw clenched.

John looked defiant and aggressive.

And quite fetching, Sherlock surmised to himself, not suppressing the thought as he usually would. Instead he allowed it to roll around freely within his mind, as casual as you please. Interesting sensation. He continued conversation, surprised at his newfound equilibrium.

“Well, that’s a bit rude,” Sherlock supplied in a totally reasonable tone of voice. He put the lid on the kettle.

“Rude?!” John replied in a tone opposite to Sherlock’s.

Sherlock turned back to John, “And I thought you wanted me to be nicer to people.”

“ _Nicer_?! Nicer doesn’t mean letting some bloke suck you off in our kitchen!”

Sherlock struggled not to blush. “It’s not your concern,” he pointed out, softer than he had intended.

“I know!” John tossed his hands up at the admission, “Damnit.” He ran his hands through his hair as if trying to physically gather his thoughts. He quieted, “Damnit, Sherlock. I know. It’s none of my business. You just… You deserve better.”

“Deserve better?” Sherlock mimicked in response. He made an “ugh” sound and declared, “Boring.” -- with a wave of his hand. Sherlock went to find the jar that held John’s favorite tea blend.

John stepped in front of him. Sherlock came up short, his chosen path effectively blocked. He glared at the former soldier, but John did not waver.

Instead, John took a deep breath as if he were about to jump into a pool, “I need to tell you… I… I slept with someone.”

“How is that news, John?” Sherlock put his hands on his hips, aggravated. This was most definitely not what he’d been expecting.

John pressed on despite the interruption, not able to look directly at Sherlock just yet, “It was while you were gone, while you were… you know, dead.”

“Okay,” he drawled slowly as if John were being dense, “And why are you telling me this now?”

John was undeterred, though he found he had broken out into a cold sweat, “Tall. Dark hair. Nice… eyes.”

At the word “eyes”, John forced himself to stop staring at the top button of Sherlock’s shirt. He forced himself to look into Sherlock’s fiery gaze.

When John’s eyes met his, Sherlock’s thought process began to blink on and off, as if defaulting to archaic computer code, 1s and 0s. 

Sherlock was summarily confounded, “What the hell am I supposed to say to that?”

John just sort of… stood there, looking afraid but purposeful.

It didn’t fit, the topic of conversation and his apparent trepidation.

John was trying in his own way to tell him Something, working up the courage.

But what took so much courage for such a fearless man?

Why was John so very nervous?

The deduction happened all in a rush of unbiased logic.

[Memory: _“He’s not my date.” – “We’re not a couple.” – “I’m not gay.” – “Well, I am. Look at us both.” – Silence_.]

Sherlock declared in a marveling tone of voice: “You had sex with… a man.”

The scenarios that his brain constructed with this new information were staggering, a veritable flip book, vignettes of John locked in amorous embrace. The Need was suddenly bearing down upon him, scalding his neck, groin and hands. His heart, though, was awash with a cold fire. He shut off the homoerotic imagery with great effort.

John had not expected it to sound so serious when said aloud, as if he had just confessed to murder. His voice was barely above a whisper as he studied Sherlock’s face, “I had sex… with a man… a few times.”

Sherlock was motionless save for his breathing.

“It was a regular thing, um, for almost a month, yeah. It wasn’t exactly a healthy… arrangement, but… it is what it is. It happened.”

Sherlock was still unresponsive.

John waited, and watched. Nothing.

Still no response.

John shook his head once, “Okay, it’s gettin’ a bit scary now.”

“So, what are you trying to tell me… _exactly_?”

John startled at the abrupt reanimation of his friend. He turned pink at what he knew he had to say, “It was you. I was trying to replace you…”

“Replace me?”

“Yeah.”

“But we don’t…”

“Yes, Sherlock. I know. We don’t… but… I wanted to.”

“You wanted to…” Sherlock’s brows knitted together, and a low “hmmm” resonated in his throat, “…to have sex?” -- his voice dropped in tone and volume as disbelief clung to the cogs of his mind – “…with me?”

Stunned by his friend’s uncharacteristically poor use of words, John felt his face go hot in embarrassment, “Well, no. I mean, I didn’t know it at the time. But, yeah… yes. Now. I mean, not NOW, but I get it now.”

Sherlock looked utterly flummoxed.

He did not seem even close to responding, so John licked his own lips nervously and took a very small step forward, trying his best to normalize his voice, “I sound like an idiot. Look, I didn’t even know you were capable of… of… _that_... until Curt Bloody Wild showed up on our doorstep.”

“I’m not impotent, John,” Sherlock assured bluntly.

The declaration threw him for a moment before he could smile at its glaring absurdity.

John threw back one of Sherlock’s most trademark statements, ”Obviously.”

Sherlock blinked rapidly, trying to catch John’s meaning when he remembered the Impromptu Kitchen Fellatio. The high edges of his cheeks, the length of his neck and the tips of his ears turned pink.

John rolled his eyes, shook his head, and caught sight of something sitting on the counter. The pendant, it seemed to be glowing softly.

Sherlock’s phone chimed. He pulled it out, and stared at the screen.

John watched the color drain from his best friend’s face, “What? What is it?”

“It’s Lestrade,” was what Sherlock said, looking up with his lips parted and eyes a little wide.

A bright white flash of light strobed into their flat from the windows in the parlor.

Mute lightning.

John blinked.

Sherlock had disappeared.

It was only out of habit that John had been able to catch up to Sherlock who was already headed out, descending the stairs. Sherlock had left his coat. That was alarming in and of itself. He grabbed Sherlock’s coat, and raced after Sherlock into the cold, stormy afternoon.

His tall friend was waving a cab down. He was already drenched.

“Here,” John ordered in his best captain’s voice.

Sherlock turned to him, his arm still outstretched to hail a cab. He saw the coat shoved at him, nodded and put it on.

They stood in silence for almost a full two minutes. The black cab that appeared out of traffic swerved to pick them up. It was barely stopped before the duo piled in.

“The Virginia Hotel,” Sherlock issued their destination to the cabby, as if it were any other day, nothing wrong.

John knew better than that. He knew Sherlock better.

The wiper blades slapped viciously, barely clearing the rain as they drove.

Sherlock was on his phone, texting at high speed. John remained quiet despite his worry and intense curiosity.

Sherlock’s curls hung in wet loops about his face and neck.

The neon blue lights of the police cars were made to kaleidoscope through the splattering of rain on the cab windows. At the sight of them, John’s stomach turned into lead. The police were parked at the entrance to the hotel. Crime scene tape flapped in the wind.

Sherlock was out of the cab as soon as he could manage, leaving John to pay. But this time, John did not feel irritated. Something bad had happened, something personal.

John jogged through the rain. The cab hadn’t been able to get too close. The street had been cordoned off.

There was an ambulance with its lights on, too, with the rear doors shut. Police in rain coats kept the meager group of onlookers back. Even a monsoon couldn’t tamp the morbid curiosity of humankind.

“Fuck,” came a woman’s shout through the sounds of the storm and the city.

John was looking for Sherlock. He circumvented the crowd, spotted Donovan who waved him over. She didn’t say anything as she lifted the tape for him. He followed her pointed gaze to the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Guests and employees stared out from inside, through the rotating glass doors and the glass-walled lobby.

Sherlock stood stock still, staring at one of the two dead bodies before him.

Curt Wild lay dead with bullet wounds riddling his chest. One had gotten his throat. The blood was being washed away, across the sidewalk and into the sewer grate. The steel gray eyes were looking up into the sky, unblinking as raindrops fell upon them. An eerie sight.

The other body was a petite woman, caucasian. A gun lay near her on the ground. She, too, was face up. Her eyes were closed, though, and her mouth was open wide as if she had died while screaming. It seemed the back of her head was missing, as if it had been bashed into the pavement.

“Fuck, fuck!” issued two more shouts followed by a string of words in a language John did not recognize. It was the same voice he’d heard upon his approach to the crime scene. She was almost as tall as Sherlock, her bare feet were cut up and bleeding. No surprise there. There was broken glass all over the place.

She was wearing nothing but a gray tank top and plaid pajama bottoms. Her head was shaved and her skin was light brown. Her forearms and hands were cut up, too. She stood in the rain. The symmetrical features of her face were hard and grim.

Lestrade stood near her, watching her with a kind of curiosity that made John briefly question what her role in all of this had been.

John slowly approached Sherlock from the side, carefully studying the man’s face. Just when John had begun to wonder how to help his friend, Sherlock turned to John, and looked him right in the eyes.

The Look nailed his feet to the concrete.

John frowned, felt his throat go tight.

“I can’t do this, John,” Sherlock spoke as if no one else were around. His voice was unaffected. His skin was paper white.

John shifted into immediate supplication, hands balling into fists at his side. He was ready for a mission, a purpose, something to do in order to restore Sherlock’s self-assured, razor-sharp focus.

He uttered quite clearly, insistently, “What do you need? What can I do?”

Sherlock was silent, searching John’s eyes. He must have found what he was looking for, because some of that Lost Boy Look drained away, leaving Sherlock looking more like himself.

Lestrade walked up to them, wearing a long trench coat and holding a black, expensive-looking umbrella.

The woman in the pajamas was now under the awning, looking cold and resigned. Two uniformed officers stood with her.

“Sherlock, I didn’t think you’d come rushing down here,” Lestrade said, his voice was tempered with surprise and sympathy.

Sherlock bowed his head, eyes squeezed shut. He put his hands together at his mouth, took a deep breath in and straightened. He did not look at John who seemed about to deter Lestrade.

Sherlock spoke blithely and with characteristic hubris, “The woman’s name is Hoija, I presume.”

“Yeah,” Lestrade’s surprise grew, painted obvious on his face.

“She executed the… murderer,” Sherlock offered, turning his gaze to the mousy-looking dead woman.

“That’s what she says. Witnesses say the same. Did it all with her bare hands, no less.”

“But?” Sherlock put his hands in his pockets, glancing now to the bodies.

Lestrade shifted uneasily.

John was getting nervous for his friend. He had rarely seen Sherlock so emotional, except maybe at Baskerville. He didn’t count the moments before Sherlock had jumped from Bart’s. That had been an acting job, hadn’t it? Now, John wasn’t so sure.

“She was on the sixth floor when the shooting happened,” Lestrade said it as if he knew that Sherlock already surmised as much. He looked also to John.

“Who was?” John was snapped back into the moment by Lestrade’s statement.

“Hoija,” Sherlock answered before Lestrade could.

“Wait… that’s impossible,” John started, blinking rapidly, shaking his head, “That would mean she was able to get down here, to ground level, in the amount of time it took the shooter to fire a few shots.”

Curt’s body and the dead woman’s body were being covered with black tarps. Sherlock turned away from the scene, looking up into the sky. The rain was easing up now, coming down in soft, light pellets.

News crews began to turn up.

It would be international news.

Curt Wild Gunned Down in London.

Vultures.

Sherlock was staring at the front of the hotel. He seemed to speak as if from a great distance, “You will find that the woman, the shooter, was the former manager of Tommy Stone. I believe Tommy Stone may have suffered a similar fate as… Curt Wild.”

When he said the name, he looked right at John.

John had no idea how Sherlock had done it, the deduction. He felt out of his depth. He looked right up at the building, saw curtains blowing out of a room on an upper story. The sixth floor? John’s jaw dropped a bit at that. He shot a befuddled gaze at the woman he now knew as Hoija.

Lestrade appeared absolutely astonished by Sherlock’s statements, “Tommy Stone, the American popstar?”

“Formerly known as Brian Slade,” Sherlock clarified, “And Curt’s former lover.”

Apparently, Lestrade hadn’t been into that particular music scene, and had no idea about any of it. He recognized the names, of course. Who wouldn’t?

Sherlock seemed to be recovering somewhat from his spooked state. His mind all but sparkling in the late afternoon gloom. The rain had dissipated. It was misting now.

Sherlock’s words then flowed as if he were on automatic pilot, “Too, I think you will find that Jack Fairy and Brian Slade’s ex-wife were victims of foul play. Jack Fairy was easy enough. He’d already been diagnosed with cancer. Lots of ways to make it look like an accident.”

Sherlock took a breath, and continued in rapid-fire brilliance, “Brian’s ex was a known drunk and pill user. She drowned in her own vomit. I suspect this deranged sycophant had something to do with their deaths. She’d been careful with them. This was the last of it. I believe Hoija’s presence limited the killer’s options. This may have been planned as a murder-suicide, but Hoija disrupted that plan.”

“What about Arthur Stuart?” John heard himself ask, trying to keep up with Sherlock’s chain of reasoning.

Sherlock shook his head once, eyes dragging over to his doctor’s face, “His was an actual suicide.” – a beat – “At least he got the end he wanted.”

“Sherlock,” John said, tone colored with a warning and concern.

Sherlock spun away and strode over to Hoija who seemed to have been staring at Sherlock since Curt’s body had been covered.

John and Lestrade followed.

John was appreciative of the cover of the awning. He was shivering now, and noticed that Lestrade was shivering, too.

“Explain how you managed to jump from a six story window with nothing but a few cuts to show for it,” Sherlock demanded, back to his usual blunt style of interfacing. 

Hoija’s face matched the cool and collected visage John had seen so many times before, worn expertly by his friend.

“Parkour,” she said with no preamble.

“Parkour?!” Lestrade exclaimed, almost laughing.

“I don’t believe you,” Sherlock responded with certainty.

“How do you think I did it, then? Sherlock?” Hoija asked. Her accent was thick, something John could not place.

“I don’t know,” Sherlock answered grudgingly, disconcerted at being so unsure about such a major detail. Of course she’d know who he was, too. He searched her eyes, noting she was wearing colored contact lenses. They made her eyes look coffee brown with gold flecks.

“Curt spoke well of you,” Hoija remarked.

A paramedic chose that moment to approach, holding a blanket and a medical bag, “Excuse me, do you need treatment, ma’am?”

“No, thank you,” Hoija declined without looking. She had eyes only for Sherlock.

The paramedic held out a blanket. The soaked tank top left nothing to the imagination. And while John was freezing, Hoija wasn’t showing the slightest bit of discomfort. John assumed she must be in shock. Hoija refused the blanket kindly enough. The paramedic shrugged and left.

“What was that language you were speaking?” Sherlock queried, curiosity at its pique, mind whirring so much John thought he could hear it.

“Cantonese,” Hoija answered.

“Wrong,” Sherlock said.

It was only then that the woman’s mask of indifference morphed into something more human, a bump of a smile curled the corners of her mouth.

Lestrade and John shared a look.

“I will miss Curt. He was unique,” was all Hoija had to say to Sherlock’s accusation.

At hearing Curt’s name, Sherlock seemed to falter. He curled his fingers so tightly in his pockets that his nails left crescents in his palms. He was grateful John had brought the jacket. He looked over to John, as if needing to see he was still there.

“Yes, well, you say you killed his murderer,” Sherlock began, but was interrupted.

“You know I did. Games do not become you. And I need no thanks.”

Sherlock raised his chin, “I wasn’t going to thank you.”

John stepped up beside Sherlock, speaking in low tones to Hoija, “Look, I know you were close to Curt, but the woman deserved a trial.”

“She got just what she deserved. You know it,” Hoija hissed, leveling her gaze onto John for the first time. Her smile returned. She looked like a self-satisfied snake, “You know it first hand…” -- abruptly, her smile was gone like someone had turned off a light switch -- “...with more success than me, I’m afraid.”

John’s hackles raised, and Sherlock stiffened. They shared the same thought: John’s assassination of the cabbie. How could she know? What the hell was going on?

“You have rights to an attorney, Hoija,” Lestrade interjected, becoming alarmed by the turn of conversation, stepping forward.

Hoija looked to Lestrade, and then back to Sherlock. With a strange, lost kind of expression taking over her face, she said, “The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.”

There was no time to wonder at that statement.

In that moment, the entire street was blanketed in complete, white fury.

The sound, the crack of lightning, was deafening.

Some people screamed and ran.

Others dove to the ground and covered their heads.

Sherlock and John were of the latter, with John’s body half on top of Sherlock, shielding him.

John thought it’d been a bomb. Most people had, but it had just been a lightning bolt striking close.

Very close.

John saw it now.

Lightning had struck a news van on the other side of the street.

Just lightning. _Just lightning_ , John repeated in his head, and he may have said it aloud a few times, too. The hairs all over his body stood on end. The van had not exploded, not like it would have in the movies. It just sat there and smoldered.

Lestrade’s stout umbrella almost blew away in gusts that buffeted them before the wind dissipated into dreary stillness. The rain had stopped, leaving only a gray canopy of unladen storm clouds.

John, Sherlock and Lestrade stood, knees and elbows the worse for the wear. 

Lestrade closed his umbrella with a wet-sounding _shick_ and _click_.

When they looked around, they saw there was no real damage besides the news van.

People looked upset, scared, confused, but not hurt.

The medics were busy checking on panicked bystanders, the police even more so, trying to regain control of the crime scene.

“She’s gone!” Lestrade exclaimed.

The detective inspector jogged to the other uniformed police, issuing orders to search for Hoija.

Sherlock stood close to John, pressed to him from shoulder to pinky.

Sherlock was staring at Curt’s covered body, appearing spell bound, as if the percussion and proximity of the electrical discharge had reset his circuits to skinless grief.

John’s chest cavity seemed to swell to bursting. He watched Sherlock’s face, and finally knew what he needed to do.

John brushed his pinky across Sherlock’s limp hand, skin moist and wrinkled from being wet for so long. He wrapped his hand firmly around Sherlock’s, giving the unresponsive hand a squeeze. 

Sherlock glanced from the morbid scene some meters away, down to his hand, enfolded in John’s reassuring grasp.

The warmth between their palms built and spread up their arms.

Sherlock glanced sharply up at John who seemed to struggle against an impulse to hide.

John visibly steadied himself, and he let Sherlock read whatever was written so plainly on his face.

John almost flinched in surprise when Sherlock’s fingers finally came to respond in kind, encircling his friend’s hand with likewise surety. They stood silent for the longest moment, holding hands, standing pressed together, side by side.

Around them, the chaos of a murder scene, a lightning strike and a man hunt.

“Curt refused the pendant,” Sherlock spoke.

John didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. His stomach did a flip-flop when Sherlock’s thumb slid across the top of John’s hand. John’s heart, too, involved itself, skipping once or twice.

He stepped in front of Sherlock, keeping their hands locked together. Anyone watching would not have noticed the hand-holding, so close were they.

Sherlock looked down into John’s face, “They won’t find her. Hoija.”

“Was she an assassin or something? Or MI6?” John asked, more concerned for his friend than for the mystery.

“How would I know?” Sherlock grumped, though he didn’t seem mad at John. He still held his hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“So, what do you want to do?” John asked.

Sherlock considered, took a breath, looked around them, registering the scene that encapsulated them.

The lanky detective seemed to come to a decision, “Home?”

“Home,” he agreed, lending a small nod before letting go of Sherlock’s hand, “One sec, yeah?”

“If you must,” Sherlock said in a longsuffering way, as if he bore some great burden because of John’s curtesy of others.

“Oi, Greg,” John called to the D.I. who was in deep conversation with Donovan.

Lestrade met John halfway, the collapsed umbrella held at his side.

“We’re going to go ahead and take off,” John informed him amiably.

“Right. He gonna be okay, you think?” Lestrade gestured to Sherlock who had already begun to leave, and now was waiting patiently on the other side of the crime scene tape. “He seemed pretty shook up.”

“I’ll take care of him,” John said, “Thanks. And good luck.”

Lestrade grunted, “Huh. Got a feeling I just lost a murder suspect.”

John shook the policeman’s hand, giving a sympathetic smile, “Take care, mate.”

Lestrade let him go and muttered, “You, too.” -- before returning to work.

John walked back over to Sherlock who lifted the crime scene tape for John to duck under.

Hoija had been right.

John thought Curt’s killer had gotten just what she deserved.

John also thought Sherlock would agree.

But there were some things best left unsaid.


	5. The Epilogue Singularity

×××

Hoija was never found. The freak lightning strike had given her enough time to escape. And apparently another talent of hers, besides being able to jump from high places and survive to kill, was being able to disappear without a trace.

Sherlock’s deductions were spot on, as per usual. Brian Slade had been murdered. His body was found in the wine cellar of his mansion. He had tried to leave his deranged manager, and she had apparently snapped.

She proceeded to kill every person Brian had ever cared about. Jack Fairy, because of Brian’s idolization of the rock icon. Brian’s ex-wife for obvious reasons. And Curt Wild because Brian still bought the man’s records, and still cried out for him in the night.

As for John and Sherlock, the Mystery of the Great Unnamable Thing had been solved. They became a cohesive unit once more. An ease returned between them that had been missing since the Reichenbach fall.

Over the course of Many Weeks after Curt’s murder, they lived at Baker Street in harmony, settling into a new kind of rhythm.

They shared everything they had before: the Work, the arguments, the tea and the curry. They also shared light touches, random and tentative. Hands, shoulders, arms. And these touches were becoming increasingly electric and lingering, as if shifting from emotional Repair to physical Need.

“Tell me again about Mind Palace John,” John requested one night over take away and crap telly.

Sherlock decided he would not blush at this. That was what John wanted after all. He sometimes regretted telling the doctor about the personification of the Need, but they had been doing the Sharing Thing a lot lately, and it had just come out.

Sherlock managed to look annoyed, barely, “What precisely do you want to know?”

John smiled as if seeing right through the act, “Is he fit?”

Sherlock hadn’t been expecting that question.

He was taken aback at first, but John’s humor was infectious and put Sherlock somewhat at ease. He couldn’t help the small smile that mirrored John’s, “Yes.”

“Really?” John responded, feigning being scandalized. He turned off the sound of the television, as if the subject required his utmost attention. Maybe it did. The whole thing was utterly fascinating.

“But not too much, nothing grotesque,” Sherlock assured with increasing warmth.

“Is he all oily or sweaty?” John asked, innocently sucking on the end of a straw.

Sherlock couldn’t help the blush now, “Perhaps a bit sweaty…” – he cleared his throat, looking down – “Bloody sometimes.” 

Sherlock was nervous adding this last bit. He checked tentatively for John’s reaction.

John stopped chewing on the straw and turned serious, “So… D’you like blood, then?”

Sherlock huffed defensively, and almost answered to the negative, despite the truth.

Something in John’s face stopped him.

John watched as Sherlock seemed to battle internally with himself.

The doctor decided to offer a piece of his own secret, out of fairness and mercy for Sherlock’s pitifully conflicted expression. John said with some earnest feeling, “I do. Sometimes.”

Sherlock looked flustered and frustrated, “I find myself suddenly on untested ground.”

“How so?” John queried, watching Sherlock’s lips more and more.

Their voices had gotten quiet, achieving hushed tones in the growing intimacy.

“With… Curt… I deduced what he wanted from me, and I became it.”

John nodded, a lance of pain cutting through him as he recognized Sherlock’s grief. Sherlock had taken the loss well. He’d been laconic and withdrawn, but never withdrawn from John. In fact, the whole debacle seemed to have taken down a wall between them. They’d never been closer.

“I have deduced what you want,” Sherlock said after some hesitation.

John stilled, his innards seemed suddenly buoyant as if he were about to freefall on a roller coaster. What had his friend seen in him? What had Sherlock deduced? There were things about himself that John struggled to accept. What the hell was about to be said? He shifted nervously as his anxiety grew.

“The difference is, John… The difference is…” Sherlock seemed stuck.

John’s understanding blossomed fully in that moment. His anxiety drained from him in an instant, leaving him aroused and elated. He said it as it occurred to him, “You already are what I want. You don’t have to become anything but what you already are.”

Sherlock nodded, and looked at John with a hard expression, as if wondering if John knew fully what that meant.

John was mulling over the implications of what he’d just said, taking in the features of Sherlock’s face. His best friend seemed suddenly so much younger than John ever remembered seeing him.

John’s desire built like a fire within him, licking at the walls of his viscera. His mind began to narrow down to a single point. The minutia of Sherlock’s physical form began to make themselves known to him.

The pulse at Sherlock’s throat, exposed by the opened collar of his pajama top.

The dressing gown settled around his form like a silk curtain.

His long leg was folded under him.

And his hair was dark with loose waves, still damp from the shower he’d had not an hour ago.

Sherlock’s hips were narrow, pivoted towards John, tilted back under the thin pajama bottoms.

When John raised his gaze to Sherlock’s face, his friend’s silver-green eyes were bright, and his breathing had increased under John’s scrutiny.

In a flash, John knew. He didn’t have to be anything but himself, either.

John moved closer to Sherlock on the couch.

Sherlock watched him, face impassive but for the dilated pupils.

John reached out a hand and touched the back of his fingers to Sherlock’s mouth.

Sherlock’s eyes closed momentarily, and he rubbed his lips back and forth over John’s hand before nuzzling his cheek into it.

John dared not breathe too hard.

This was really happening.

All those soft, chaste touches these past weeks had been enough, until now.

John knew, in no uncertain terms, that Sherlock just might let John do anything to him.

A sobering, frightening, exhilarating thought, that.

“I’m sorry I trounced you when you came back,” John said in a whisper, fingers coming to grasp Sherlock’s chin.

Sherlock stilled under John’s touch, and his eyelids seemed suddenly too heavy to open. Some new and strange sensation was beginning to downshift his tachypsychia, causing the world around him, including John, to slow.

He knew he was losing Control.

The manifestation of the Need was nowhere to be found in his mind palace. And he knew why. It was because he had the real thing sitting centimeters away, holding his face.

The memories of his return from death, and John’s reaction to it, played freely in his mind. His response was as wry as his smile, “Don’t apologize for giving me what I deserved.”

“Damnit, Sherlock. You deserve more than that,” John said, his voice lower and rougher than Sherlock had ever heard it. Sherlock opened his eyes, and John continued in a whisper, “And I need more than that.”

“John,” Sherlock all but sighed, “Can you... just... tell me what to do?”

Those pleading words sent John’s mind on strike, and his cock twitched within his trousers. Every inch of his skin seemed to come alive, and he felt like he would combust with the power of Sherlock’s surrender. He nearly lost all ability to speak, but, alas, John was built for this moment.

“Alright,” John answered, sweeping his thumb across Sherlock’s lower lip.

Sherlock closed his eyes at the sensation, feeling as if he were falling.

John spoke, then, his words resounding through every cell of Sherlock’s being: “Stop thinking, and let me do what I want.”

Sherlock shivered, shuddering visibly as an emerging wetness sparkled in his dark eyelashes.

John’s heart ignited at the sight of Sherlock’s unshed tears.

They were tears of Relief, Trust and Need.

John wrapped his hand around the back of Sherlock’s neck, fingers tight as a vice. 

He memorized the way Sherlock looked in this moment. And then…

He kissed Sherlock, lips shockingly gentle in contrast to the force of the grip he had on Sherlock’s nape.

Sherlock made a sound between a whimper and a moan, and the last vestiges of rational thought eased from him like poison from a wound.

The immense relief at losing his mind should have bothered Sherlock, but John was there, kissing him, taking Control of the Need.

He trusted John to take care of him. Utterly.

×××

“Jacqui,” called the doctor’s assistant. She entered the lab from the hall that led to the administrative annex.

Dr. Lennon looked up from the microscope. She was rarely disturbed in the lab. Something important must have come through. Perhaps a response to her grant request!

They were getting down to the wire on funds, and if the grant didn’t come through… well, they could kiss the lab goodbye. On top of that, she’d have to fire Deb. And Deb was Awesome.

So, the grant had to come through. That was all there was to it.

“A courier dropped this for you,” the young woman said as she held out the manila package to the doctor.

“Not the grant committee, then,” Dr. Lennon sighed, accepting the package, “Thanks, Deb.”

The doctor opened the padded envelope and saw there was something small stuffed inside.

She reached in and pulled out a slip of paper that said, _“For science. – SH”_

Dr. Lennon’s eyes rounded and she gasped, “Oh! Oh, oh! Hot diggity!” She pulled out a small lump from the package.

“What is it?” Deb asked.

“It’s our future, Deb!” the older woman all but squealed. Dr. Lennon held up the green pendant to the light, and whispered through a super-sized grin, “It’s... Everything.”

×××

“There’s something that I’m missing,” Sherlock declared one bright, Sunday afternoon, not a week after their First Kiss. John was perusing the paper in the living room. Sherlock had walked into the common area from the kitchen, decked out in protective goggles, rubber gloves, and a dressing gown.

John tore his eyes away from the headlines, nothing too interesting there anyway, “About what?”

“I think my brother is… seeing… someone,” Sherlock muttered.

John sucked in a breath, “There’s a scary thought.”

“I’m missing something, though, something obvious.”

“Sherlock, you’re dripping,” John pointed out.

Sherlock had been holding some strange, fleshy looking thing in the pincers of stainless steel tongs. The thing was indeed beginning to ooze and drip.

“Ooh,” Sherlock pivoted and marched back into the recesses of the kitchen.

John tried to turn his attention back to the paper in his hand, but an insignificant memory floated to the forefront of his mind. He lowered the paper.

“Sherlock,” John called.

He heard a distracted “Hmm?” from the kitchen.

John set the paper aside and stood. He walked to the edge of the linoleum, “Mycroft called me some weeks ago, and in the background, I heard a voice. Thought I recognized it. A man.”

Sherlock straightened from his careful assortment of… _Dear god, what was that?_

“A man’s voice you recognized?”

John nodded.

Sherlock paused, considered, shrugged, “Could be anyone. The Prime Minister. Anyone.” Sherlock returned to his selecting the next… _item... chunk..._ to be tested.

Something huge clanged within John’s mind, like an iron puzzle piece falling from a height, to fit perfectly into its place. He almost choked as the epiphany took him completely by surprise. It was almost like being back outside the Virginia Hotel, subjected to a lightning blast.

Sherlock did not seem to notice. John blinked rapidly. Was this what Sherlock felt when he made a deduction? If so, it was damned amazing.

John decided this was a rare moment.

He had figured out something before Sherlock!

The doctor cleared his throat, and proceeded in a casual way, “So, do you think Mycroft is… you know…”

“What?” Sherlock asked, sounding inconvenienced and no longer concerned with the topic at hand. He pinched the green lump with a density caliper.

“Is Mycroft gay?” John asked, suppressing the smile that begged to appear on his face. He folded his arms across his chest, a twinkle in his eyes.

“Well, yes. Probably. I don’t know. Too little data,” Sherlock answered. He straightened then, and put the goggles on top of his head, looking off into an unseen distance, “He did stare pretty hard at Victor Trevor when I brought him ‘round the house.”

“Sherlock,” John proceeded, “What was that you said last week? About Greg’s umbrella?”

“Greg? Who?” Sherlock took little effort to switch tracks of thought, though the change of subject puzzled him. John was not prone to random feats of complex thought.

John couldn’t help the bark of laugher that escaped him at Sherlock’s continued ignorance of the detective inspector’s first name, “Lestrade! You said something about the price of his umbrella.”

“Oh, yes. Extremely expensive, and in good taste. No poor reflection on Lestrade, of course, but it was most definitely not…”

John saw the moment it happened, and grinned behind a fist.

“Oh!” Sherlock’s hands dropped to his sides as if his strings had been cut.

His eyes rounded, and his mouth formed a wide circle, “Oh! Oh… and… ew. Oh, god, no…” – Sherlock buried the filthy gloves into his hair, trying to stop the idea from taking root. Too late. He squeezed his eyes shut, “The images! No.”

John laughed his arse off while Sherlock suffered the wrath of his powerful mind.

In this case, Sherlock’s instantaneous ability to conjure up bigger than life, surround sound, technicolor scenarios worked against him.

“John! Save me!” Sherlock crowed.

John was laughing so hard, tears popped from the corners of his eyes. He clutched at his stomach.

“Stop laughing! Oh, the nudity… the fluids! Please, John.”

John wiped at his tears and approached Sherlock, “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry.”

He carefully wrapped his arms around his detective, and consolingly placed kisses all over his face.

John’s body still shook with silent laughter, “So sorry, love.”

“I’m sorry, too,” and Sherlock wrapped his arms around John, burying his nose into John’s hair.

The slime from the experiment left green and brown streaks on John’s jumper.

“Ugh,” John groaned as he felt the messy, gloved hands go around him, knowing the damage was done but not really minding too much.

John hugged Sherlock close.

“I hate him,” Sherlock’s declaration was muffled in the silver blonde of John’s hair.

John finally stopped laughing, sliding his hands up and down the fabric of Sherlock’s dressing gown. There were small acid burns here and there in the fabric. John closed his eyes, letting the moment brand itself into his memory banks.

And a whole, weird life seemed to stretch before them in his mind.

He could not predict what would happen next, no.

There was one thing that John knew for certain, though, and that was that life with Sherlock in his arms was a Life Worth Living.

×××

Mycroft’s text alert chimed, and he rolled onto his side, and reached over to the nightstand. Bleary eyed and uncoordinated with lack of sleep, he retrieved his phone and blinked at it in the quasi darkness afforded him by the blackout drapes over the tall windows.

_Congratulations, Mycroft._

It was John.

Mycroft groaned and covered his eyes with his forearm.

“What is it?” came a masculine voice to his left, a body shifting under the covers, and a tired face peeking out from under a pillow.

“They know,” Mycroft stated.

Lestrade pushed the pillow off of his head, and propped himself up on his elbows, belly down on the large bed. He watched Mycroft for his reaction.

Slowly, he allowed a smile, and bumped Mycroft’s shoulder with his own, “Does that mean we get to double date?”

Mycroft quickly uncovered his face to stare aghast at Greg. When he saw the mischievous grin that had taken over Greg’s mouth, he calmed instantly. It had thankfully been a joke. Mycroft even managed a micro-smile himself, “Cheeky this morning, aren’t we?”

Mycroft was staring at Lestrade’s mouth now.

It was just so ridiculous how fascinating the mouth seemed, now that Mycroft had tasted it.

“You like it,” Greg pointed out with a smirk, making his own deduction, finding himself sinking into his lover’s dark gaze. Mycroft’s inner world was so painfully open now, bared for Greg alone. A precious gift, Greg knew, this intimacy, this vulnerability.

“Mmm, perhaps,” Mycroft hedged with a charming half-smile.

Mycroft was promptly rewarded with a kiss that set fire to his mind. He sighed into the embrace.

He could be Ice Man in the real world, but here, under Greg’s attentions and in Greg’s arms, Mycroft could finally just… be human.

×××

Hoija leaned against the cold brick of the building, feet planted firmly on a fourth story fire escape. Her gaze was trained on the ugly face of the alleyway opposite, unseeing. The weak morning light played prisms with the gold and scarlet of her alien irises. Gone were the contact lenses, and gone was her desire to be among the people of this Intersection of space-time.

As the planet rotated and brought more of the world's Starlight to shine on London, Hoija knew she would Step soon and she decided not to miss Curt Wild anymore. It did no good to linger or regret. She had been too late for her friend at this Intersection, and knew from centuries of experience not to try for a different outcome with the same person someplace else.

It was time to go, and at that thought, she felt her bones condense, her guts shiver, and her mind expand. She was ready to Step to somewhere new. Once she did, she could never Return. The act of Returning was a myth, perpetrated by a deeply disturbed sect of her people. Hoija knew better. Intersections were infinite and unnavigable. That was just the way it was.

She moved away from the brick wall, to the black railing of the fire escape, and turned to look at the Great Starlight with its white-yellow brilliance.

It was in that quivering second that the end of an arrow seemed to sprout from under her rib cage, the arrowhead buried deep between her lungs, nicking the apex of her heart. She stared down at the black and bluish feathers at the end of the arrow’s aluminum shaft.

 _Shot from below, judging by the angle of it,_ was her last thought before she crumpled to her knees, hands darting out to grab the rail for aide. She still ended up hitting her forehead on the bars. The metal frame of the fire escape clanged with the impact of her drop and her head. Her vision swam.

Two booted feet was what she saw next, her vision whittling down to a narrow tunnel of sight. The person belonging to those feet kneeled, and a pale face came into view, niether masculine nor feminine. The eyes, though, were alarming. Why? It was hard to think.

 _“Where is the pendant?”_ asked a voice in a language Hoija hadn’t heard in two-hundred years, maybe more. Her memories blurred beyond that time.

 _“I don’t know what… you’re talking about,”_ Hoija intoned, hearing her words as if from a distance.

She looked upon the face, trying to focus. She did not know it, did not expect to know it.The eyes, though, were crimson and gold, like hers. She struggled to breathe, to stay upright. The stranger was Jini, like her. The mathematical probability of this meeting made her a little giddy despite the sudden violence perpetrated against her _._

 _No, not right_.

Her survival instinct kicked in.

With the last of her energy, she tried to Step in order to save herself, and regenerate, but she found her body just could not do it. Something was interfering with her ability to move to another Intersection. The arrowhead, she realized too late, was the cause. It was made of localized Star Stone.

As long as it was in her, she could not Step.

Someone, the archer presumably, swatted her hand away from the arrow. She apparently had tried to rip the arrow out without conscious effort. Unfortunately for her, she was too weak to try again. She slumped over, cracking her head again on the wrought iron of the fire escape.

She felt nothing.

The archer stood, staring at Hoija's unconscious form.

She would not die now, not like this.

He did not believe her to be ignorant of the pendant’s location.

If she did not help him find the pendant, she would wish she would have died as easily as this.

He would not fail, no matter the cost. He’d been searching too long.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Jacqui for her geology consultation. She truly went above and beyond, and though the geology portion is relatively short, I ended up learning a lot of pretty cool science stuff!
> 
> And to getsherlockinmybed for volunteering her precious time to being a First Read guinea pig. Oh, and for her incredibly hot collection of Johnlock fan art. Holy shit. For real.
> 
> "The truth is rarely pure, and never simple." - Oscar Wilde
> 
> Lots of Oscar Wilde references here.
> 
> A few (American) Queer as Folk references because that show changed my life.
> 
> And, of course, lines by Gatiss and Moffet are inserted throughout.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for Harsher, Weirder, Closer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11093532) by [johnsredpants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnsredpants/pseuds/johnsredpants)




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